


Over and Over Again

by kanadka, smokingbomber



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Gallows Humor, Multi, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28082751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka, https://archiveofourown.org/users/smokingbomber/pseuds/smokingbomber
Summary: After being sentenced to Eternal Sleep, Jadeite has to return to one of his missions and do it over again, and again, and again, and every time he dies he keeps returning to that mission, like a video game he can't beat.
Relationships: Jadeite/Everyone
Comments: 52
Kudos: 20
Collections: Senshi & Shitennou Mini Bang 2020, Smokingbomber Arted These





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a(nother!) fic I've had in my mind for awhile now for this year's Senshi & Shitennou Mini Bang challenge with the theme of 'red', which I'm really glad was able to fit the theme. My eternal thanks to my incredibly understanding and amazingly talented and all-around wonderful artist smokingbomber, who produced some absolutely spectacular pieces for this fic and did amazing double-duty beta services 💖️💖️
> 
> Thank you as well to our modly wonders at [ssminibang @ tumblr](https://ssminibang.tumblr.com/) for the great job they did as always, and for being so very understanding 💖️💖️

1.

The flash of light dies. Around him it's all dark, now. Jadeite looks around.

He's in a parking lot, next to a building. The parking lot's deserted and there aren't many lights on at the building. A single security guard staffs the parking lot's booth, but he can't have seen them, he's asleep at his post with his legs propped up on his desk. Everything is quiet here.

But just seconds ago he was with Queen Beryl, and everything had failed, though at least he knew who the three sailor brats were, and she hadn't cared, and there was a sudden, terrible flash of light from her eyes and -

"Jadeite?" asks a voice calmly beside him. He turns - it's Flau!

"Flau!" he says, "You're alive, how can this be?"

Flau gives him a funny look before she says, "Of course I'm alive. You picked me for this mission. What, were you hoping for someone a little more dead or something?"

Mission? What? "No, I mean - didn't Sailor Moon get you with her tiara? I saw it clearly." Flau had managed to dodge a first strike, but Moon had somehow warped the energy of the weapon, and redirected it, and it sliced her in two from behind.

"Oh, that girl? _Get_ me? _Me?_ " Flau laughs haughtily. "You must be joking! Morga I can understand, and Balm made a few ... tactical errors. But this is a foolproof plan and I assure you, I'm ready for whatever trouble we come across." She lightly fingers the flower brooch pinned to her sweater. "Not that we should run into much trouble. All the staff inside are already asleep. Now, are we doing this or not? It's nearly midnight."

She walks toward the building, whose sign says "FM-10".

The radio station! And the brooches, and that old Midnight Zero programme about reading girls' love letters in return for a prize that absorbed their energy. But - how?

Numbly, he follows her inside.

-

By the time Moon's shown up, Jadeite has realised what's going on. Somehow he's repeating an earlier, failed mission. He has no idea why it started on number 3, because the other two had also failed just as miserably. Sailor Moon found out the plot for energy theft, and each time she did away with the demons he'd sent to help the plot along. Perhaps Queen Beryl wants to teach him the error of his ways. Perhaps this way he can make things right.

Or perhaps - as Flau buys it again at the hands of that stupid tiara - Queen Beryl just wants to flaunt all his failures in his face again for shits and giggles.

This time, though. This time he knows when that fancy tuxedo man will show up, and he knows _who_ the girl who comes in and rains on his parade is. Her name is Usagi Tsukino, because he saw her on the way to Haneda airport and she transformed right in front of him.

And so instead of enjoying Sailor Moon's death on the rooftop and sauntering slowly over to her, enjoying her terror, he waits only until she's been caught off-guard by the fact that he can stop her tiara in mid-air. Then he sends out a pulse of energy that pushes her off the building. Fancy man never showed, Sailor Moon's nice and dead, and Jadeite reappears in the Dark Kingdom with triumph at his fingertips.

When Queen Beryl shows him what happened after he left, he could scream with rage. Who knew the fancy man could fly?

-

So the gym plan goes ahead on schedule. And when the computer finds an Usagi Tsukino who signs in with a few of her friends, Jadeite is thrilled. He waits until she's alone in the bath - stupid girl can't even hack a thirty-minute session without a break, and it wasn't even all aerobics! That's just pathetic - and then he appears inside, magically making sure the door behind him will admit nobody else.

He creeps up behind her and plunges her head into the water and holds it there, just to watch her blubber.

He not so secretly loves the righteous feeling of finally vanquishing an enemy, relishing it as she squirms under the water... so much so that he doesn't notice when Tuxedo Mask somehow manages to show up behind him and knocks him unconscious in a single blow with that stupid stick of his.

-

When he comes to, he's back in the Kingdom in his quarters. They're austere, like all the quarters of all the generals of the Dark Kingdom: a single bed, a single closet, and only the barest semblance of privacy with no visible walls, only a vague sense of energy delimiting the room. Nephrite stands over him. "Finally," he says, smirking, "we were getting worried about our dear Sleeping Beauty."

"Who's we?" he croaks out.

"Well, myself, naturally!" Nephrite taunts. "And of course our Queen. She'd like a word with you."

-

Jadeite is given a severe dressing down and is no longer allowed back on Earth, because now everybody is looking for a man of his description who hides in women's washrooms to drown their naked bodies. And that could not have sounded more perverted, but he really wasn't thinking things through at the time!

So he allows Iguara to carry out solo what should be an easy plan involving strange and adorable monsters called _chanelas_. Sailor Moon, as before, finds it pretty simple to ruin, and makes short work of Iguara.

He tells Kyurene through the mountain of televisions to watch out for the girl with the pigtails, her name is Usagi, but the kid manages a disguise, so Kyurene doesn't watch out for the green-haired jazz fan and she buys it too.

At which point Queen Beryl is upset, Nephrite has a stitch in his side from laughing so hard, Zoisite just looks sad and Kunzite is ... Kunzite, so he implores the Queen to let him take a more active role again.

-

This time he schools Derella to let him know the second there's trouble with the talent show (and puts on a darker haired disguise, which Zoisite makes fun of him for). When Moon appears in centre stage, he's close at hand and attacks. First, he locks the whole place down. Then he tells Derella to get out of there. And last but not least he takes all the energy he'd collected and blasts the entire building from inside.

He doesn't see the fancy man, and he doesn't see Usagi. But the blast radius is twenty kilometres. If she survived that, he thinks, I'll just kill myself before Queen Beryl does.

-

Later, Jadeite tracks down a newspaper about the so-called atomic bomb that went off in Tokyo to find the list of victims, tragically struck down in their prime as teenage would-be celebrities, forever young.

He grins. Usagi Tsukino and Ami Mizuno are _both_ on it. No idea who the fancy man is, but Jadeite must have gotten him too.

Garoben's cram school idea is scrapped, because nobody in Tokyo wants to send their children anywhere now, so he has her work on other ideas. Meanwhile, most people are still upset, so he works on a way to retrieve energy from the grieving. He picks up a part-time job at a local shrine and publicises a charm for comfort and healing.

And that's where he finds Rei Hino, and the talking cat, who jumps on him from above and sinks her claws and teeth into his flesh. Then the fancy man arrives (how did he survive? Jadeite concludes his skin must be made of something indestructible, it's the only possibility) and finishes the job with a knife inside his stick.

As it slices across Jadeite's neck hotly, he at least feels vindicated at having gotten two of them. This'll make Queen Beryl's job easier. He loses consciousness quickly.

-

2.

Then he wakes up again. It's dark out, and he's back on his feet. His hand flies to his neck - it's intact, and dry.

He's in a parking lot, next to a building.

Both are eerily familiar.

"You okay?" asks a calm alto voice beside him. He doesn't have to turn to see who it is but when he does his blood runs cold.

He's unable to speak. Flau laughs at him and tells him she'll see him inside once he's done having a conniption fit or whatever it is.

-

Instantly, Jadeite returns to the Dark Kingdom. The first person he comes across is Kunzite, who looks surprised to see him. "Don't you have a mission to get to?" he asks archly.

"This can't be happening to me," mutters Jadeite. "What's going on?"

Kunzite speaks to him slowly, like he's a child. "Well, _you're_ going out to collect _energy,_ so that we can restore _Metallia_ , so that she can tell us about the _Silver Crystal_ , so that we can infest the world with _darkness_. Now. Why are you not out collecting energy?"

"How much energy have I collected so far?" asks Jadeite.

Kunzite snorts. "Not very much, Sailor Moon keeps interfering."

Tsukino is _alive?!_ "No, I killed her," Jadeite says. "It took some time but I had her cornered and - there was a blast and she was _dead!_ Why is she alive?"

Kunzite scowls. "What are you talking about? Blast?" He rolls his eyes and waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. "The first time any one of us has been allowed down to Earth, and he comes back a sputtering fool. Just fantastic."

"Listen," says Jadeite, his voice wavering. "Something really strange is happening. I've already been to Earth. Several times now."

"Well, at this rate, you're never going to get to go again, you lunatic!"

"I _killed_ Sailor Moon and Sailor Mercury, and was working on Mars when -"

"Hang on. Mercury?"

Jadeite's turn to be patronising. "Yes, Sailor Mercury. Both of them died in the blast."

"Jadeite." Kunzite puts his hands on Jadeite's shoulders; Jadeite resists the urge to shrug them off. "There was no blast. And there is no Sailor Mercury. There's just one of them, and that's Moon." Kunzite shakes his head. "I hope you're not implying they proliferate or something. I mean there are eight planets plus if Earth gets a Moon soldier, then I don't see why Jupiter and Saturn won't get one for each moon they've got, and then this'll get very complicated, very quickly."

"It already is," he murmurs, feeling defeated.

"How about you just let Nephrite handle this one, eh? Take a break and get some rest. I think this planet is driving you mad." A consolatory pat on the shoulder doesn't make Jadeite feel much better.

But Jadeite takes his advice and lets another of the Dark Kingdom generals be a radio DJ. It's extremely annoying that Nephrite's stupid sexy voice manages to garner over _twenty times_ the love letters that he did. Nephrite's chances are no better, however, and Sailor Moon mysteriously makes an appearance.

When Jadeite sees her from where he's watching in his quarters in the Kingdom, he nearly cries.

"How is this possible?!" he shrieks.

-

It takes significant effort to get Beryl to let him go back. Kunzite's word holds more sway than his, and Kunzite is firmly convinced Jadeite has gone off the deep end. Luckily, Nephrite's interaction with the Moon brat results in him returning in a terrible mood, and that makes it easy for Zoisite to provoke him into being snippy with Beryl, which she dislikes, so the mission is returned to Jadeite.

Jadeite thinks it's probably the only time he's ever wanted to hug Zoisite.

This time he slips inside the women's bathroom when Usagi Tsukino checks into the gym and this time, doesn't bother with getting revenge or getting even. Living at the end of this will be my revenge, he thinks, and he makes a quick job of it, slitting her throat from behind with a summoned hunting knife. It takes less than three seconds, but it's satisfying enough, and he vanishes before Mask can make an appearance.

One down, two to go.

-

The police get involved once "The Slasher" (as they're dubbing him in the press - it's marginally better than The Changeroom Strangler) strikes again - a young girl with premonitions who lives in a shrine - but they run into complications with the Mizuno case. Ami fights back, and gets Jadeite's skin cells under her nails and a few of his hairs scattered on her floor, but it doesn't matter, because he wrestles her to the floor and digs his elbow into her throat until she turns blue.

The police have never seen DNA like this before, and surprisingly enough, instead of shutting up about it, they publicise the 'medical miracle' that is his blood, but they'll never see anything like it again.

Finally - finally! - he's free to take as much energy as he wants. The cram school plot can at last go off without a hitch.

So he thinks. Fancy tuxedo man shows up and manages somehow to slay Garoben. Wondrous, Jadite thinks drily.

-

"I can take over for you if you want," says Zoisite one day.

"I don't need - " and then Jadeite thinks about it, and gets an idea. "Actually, that sounds like a good plan."

-

So Zoisite continues energy harvesting while Jadeite hunts Tuxedo Mask. It takes some time to get Zoisite to agree to working in such close conditions with him but he manages it, because Tuxedo Mask has a knack for showing up anytime things start getting weird, and weird is Zoisite's specialty.

The heat of the crystal that Zoisite stabs into his back is tremendous and ultimately fatal, but not paralysing, so his death is slow and painful. They grapple and he manages to do some damage - he scratches Zoisite's pretty face, he pulls his hair, but Zoisite has the advantage and pins him with his body weight to finish him off.

This, thinks Jadeite, is how Ami must have felt. He feels like he deserves it more this time.

-

3.

Then there's another flash of light. It fades to dark, though not complete dark.

He's outside, at night, in a parking lot, next to a building.

"Alright, what the _hell_ is going on?!" Jadeite roars.

Flau jumps and looks shocked. "Sir! With greatest respect, what are you talking about?"

Flau's scared. She doesn't use honorifics or phrases like 'with greatest respect' unless she thinks she's going to get her ass kicked.

Jadeite is, incidentally, angry enough for that. "Is this some kind of joke?" he yells. "Let me guess. We're going to go into that radio station, steal energy, then Sailor Moon's going to come and find us, and we're going to have to deal with her and that funny tuxedo man?"

"W-what?" Flau says. "What are you talking about?"

"Who put you up to this?" he sneers as he stalks closer. He grabs her by the collar and shakes her. "Was it Nephrite? Some kind of prank?"

"Sir, I have no clue what you are implying, sir."

"Oh-ho! Then secrecy's the game! It must be Zoisite then. This is some kind of plot to get to me, is it?" He turns to the sky and yells, "Coward! Show yourself!"

Flau tries to shush him. "The guard is right there -"

"Yeah, and so's Zoisite, I'm sure, so what's your point? I just have to find him -"

Flau disappears, and seconds later reappears, with Zoisite. "You wanted to talk to me?" Zoisite asks.

He looks puzzled but Jadeite's not fooled.

"I'll kill you!" Jadeite swears, and lunges at him. "I'll kill you for this!"

Zoisite is too shocked to react so he takes a few punches before he actually starts to fight back. Meanwhile, Flau unfreezes and starts to murmur, "oh no oh no oh sweet darkness no" before she disappears. Jadeite hardly takes any note at all in his thirst for revenge, pummeling Zoisite's face, until a force knocks him bodily off and sends him tumbling away into a nearby car.

Flau, now with Kunzite, is so terrified it looks like a particularly strong gale could make her cry. Kunzite looks murderous. Jadeite attempts to get up again but he's pinned to the ground with Kunzite's magic, and Kunzite advances slowly. "I ought to kill you for this," he says quietly.

"You're in on it too," Jadeite accuses, "I knew it -"

But Kunzite doesn't bother telling him to shut up before he transports all of them - including Zoisite, his lip bleeding, nursing a broken wrist and a black eye - back to Beryl.

Beryl makes short work of Jadeite's explanation. "A useless minion with nothing but excuses," she says. "Nephrite, you'll take over the energy harvesting. Mind you don't drive yourself mad, too."

"Yes, Queen Beryl," says a very shocked Nephrite.

She sentences Jadeite to Eternal Sleep.

[jadziatrax](https://soundcloud.com/jadziatrax) · [groundhog jade](https://soundcloud.com/jadziatrax/groundhog-jade)


	2. Chapter 2

4.

And Jadeite wakes up in a parking lot.

He lets Flau lead him inside the building. He reads the love letters for the Midnight Zero program with the barest attention, while in the forefront of his mind, he does some serious thinking. Every time he dies, he reappears here and now. He doesn't know why this happens, he doesn't even know why it's got to be here and now, but that's what seems to be the case.

It's like every time he dies, he's granted a do-over. Was there something he missed? He never did catch the tuxedo man after he slaughtered the Senshi. Was he supposed to finish him off too? Is that why he came back? What is it he's missing?

This time, he lets Sailor Moon rip Flau in half, and he takes his time with Moon, waiting for Tuxedo Mask to show up. When he finally does, Jadeite creates an illusion of returning to the Dark Kingdom, but hides behind an air vent instead. While the girl is busy simpering over her hero, Jadeite leaps to follow him.

The fancy man takes him through Tokyo by way of rooftops, until they land in a park. Then a few alleys, until he slows down. There, Jadeite watches as the tuxedo melts away to reveal a tall, thin man with dark hair and blue eyes, dressed in plain clothes. Jadeite follows him into a condominium building.

"Hey, Chiba," calls the concierge as the tuxedo man waves and heads for the elevators, while Jadeite waits from the lobby.

Chiba, he thinks, and then checks the directory. Victory: there's only one Chiba listed. Mamoru Chiba. Found you, thinks Jadeite, and reports back to Beryl.

That's where things get weird, because Beryl finds this Mamoru Chiba character and brings his face up in her files. And then suddenly, her entire posture changes.

"Don't touch him," she warns. "You can eliminate the sailors but that man isn't your concern. Leave him to me."

"If I don't eliminate him, too," Jadeite counters, "then he'll come after me and I won't be able to harvest any energy. What is it you want, his safety, or Queen Metallia?"

"Do not argue with me!" Beryl thunders, and with a wave of her sceptre, she renders his speech impossible for the remainder of the day.

-

Don't kill him, but get the sailors, thinks Jadeite at the gym. This is starting to get silly.

He makes short work of Usagi Tsukino, then, over the next month, hunts down Rei Hino, and then Ami Mizuno - who puts up a fight again.

True to form, in all Jadeite's plans, he manages to somehow spirit away enough energy that Beryl isn't concerned, while dodging Tuxedo's attacks and not hurting him. All the way until Thetis teams up with him for a plan involving a love cruise, where she accidentally drowns the tuxedo man. Can afford tuxedos, can't afford swimming lessons. Humans are so stupid.

Beryl doesn't listen to his excuses this time, either. Apparently Thetis killing Tuxedo Mask is just as bad as Jadeite killing him, though she never said _keep him safe and make sure nobody else kills him_ , she just said _you'd better not kill him_ , so frankly, Jadeite thinks he's in the clear according to the letter of the law.

But the Queen is spiteful and enraged and acts almost like a spurned lover when she sentences him to Eternal Sleep this time. She acts like she knew this man.

With a sinking feeling like he'll be waking up in a parking lot, Jadeite files the information away for future use.

-

5.

Sure enough, his first sight is the FM-10 building.

This time, Jadeite doesn't even bother with Flau. He sends her away first off, and takes care of Moon, Mars and Mercury.

Next he goes to Mamoru Chiba's house, and in the dead of night, carries the man away to the Dark Kingdom.

Beryl's so pleased she not only offers him Kunzite's position, but she also doesn't care how it is he magically knows the identities of all three sailor senshi _and_ Tuxedo Mask _or_ that Beryl wouldn't have wanted Tuxedo Mask killed. In fact, Beryl doesn't seem to care about anything outside of Tuxedo Mask at all. She caresses his cheek in a manner that Jadeite could only describe as loving (and yet he's never, ever seen Beryl be anything close to amicable) and calls him Endymion.

In retaliation for being demoted, Kunzite gets him later that night. He supposes he should've seen that one coming. Birds of a feather, after all.

-

6.

So he does it all over again, because this time he's been forewarned. Surely he's got it right now.

Moon and Mars are, as always, easy. Moon doesn't put up any fight, and despite having some kind of prescient power, Mars is easy to creep up behind in her deepest meditations. He thinks something ought to be warning her about him, but nothing ever does so it's a quick knife to the throat and he's out of there before the grandfather even hears the body fall.

This time, he stops at Mercury's house, however, and leaves her be. He can't risk it; killing her is too difficult. He needs to put weight on her to pin her down, he needs to get too close to make sure he kills her, and when he does that he drastically loses his focus to follow through with a kill, and if he can't keep his focus, she'll overpower _him_ and win. He can't let a girl win!

He finds Mamoru Chiba, brings him to Beryl, and this time drinks enough coffee to reanimate corpses. When Kunzite comes for him, Jadeite is busy casting an illusion of himself in bed, relaxed and sleeping, and Kunzite's scimitar tears through the mattress seconds before Jadeite's hunting knife slits Kunzite's jugular.

Then he realises, Zoisite. Zoisite would be waiting for Kunzite in their chamber.

Zoisite is a bit more agile than he is, but Jadeite has the advantage of surprise and seizes it, and in a flash Zoisite is on the floor, exsanguinating.

Some dark part of Jadeite then thinks: why not make it three for three? That way, he can be top gun. It's what any of them but Kunzite would do. Well, it's certainly what Zoisite would do.

But later, as Jadeite stands above a sleeping Nephrite, something makes him pause.

Nephrite can't really be called a friend, but he's the closest thing Jadeite's got to an ally. And he's never made mention of any kind of mistrust, or acted like a snake like Zoisite, and Jadeite didn't really wind up demoting Nephrite by his actions, so ...

Like lightning, a hand shoots out to grasp Jadeite's wrist. He drops the knife. It clatters to the floor and his heart pounds.

But Nephrite only holds him firm. "You're not a very quiet assassin," he murmurs. His eyes are still closed.

"I -" he begins.

"You what, you came to finish the job Zoisite started? Got to say, I didn't expect you. Kunzite, sure. A demon, maybe. After all, Zoisite doesn't like to get his hands dirty. But you?" Nephrite laughs bitterly and gives him a wry look. "That stings, Jadeite, it really does."

"No, you don't understand," he says. "I just - I just killed Zoisite and Kunzite."

Nephrite's eyes widen and he sits up in bed, letting go of Jadeite. "You did what?"

It starts to dawn on Jadeite too. He very suddenly feels exhausted. "You heard me," he murmurs.

"What the hell made you do that?" Nephrite whispers. Like someone's going to hear them or something. Who would possibly hear them now? Kunzite and Zoisite's spirits?

"I - well," he starts. "Look. It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"You'll never believe me!"

"Try me."

So Jadeite makes himself comfortable on Nephrite's bed and tells him everything that's happened so far. All of the time loops, all of the missions, all of the kills.

"And you have no idea why this is happening, or what force is causing you to repeat this performance."

"Or why it picked my third mission."

Nephrite thinks. "The ones with Balm and Morga, you weren't on Earth, you just projected. I suppose that makes the one with Flau the first time you set foot there."

"But why would that be monumental? It's just a planet!" he protests.

Nephrite looks a little sad. "It's okay," he says, putting a hand on Jadeite's shoulder, "we'll figure this out."

"Oh, you think I'm crazy too," Jadeite says, and somehow it hurts so much more than when Kunzite said it. He looks away.

"No!" says Nephrite. "Maybe a little bit. You've got to admit it's a crazy sounding story." It still stings and feels like rejection and Jadeite curses himself for having thought Nephrite would understand. "But if this keeps happening - every time you die, you just ... restart from your third mission - is this the first time you've told me this?"

Jadeite gives a small, sad nod. "I didn't know what else to do. I didn't know where to turn."

"Beryl could have -"

"The last time Beryl thought I was mad, she sentenced me to Eternal Sleep," Jadeite snaps. "And then this all started again! I wasn't going to go to her. Besides," he sniffs, "I think she's busy with that Endymion fellow."

Jadeite doesn't think it's possible for Nephrite to sound even more shocked, but he does. "Endymion?" he says. So Jadeite explains about Beryl and the fancy tuxedo man. Nephrite doesn't make any more sense of it than he does, however, so they both lie on the bed, thinking until the draining adrenaline from multiple murders fades out of Jadeite's veins. Jadeite's eyes close without his asking, and he drifts off.

-

He wakes up in Nephrite's bed. And not in the parking lot. Which makes Nephrite the only king not to try and backstab him when his guard is down to vie for position.

It's admirable, and he both envies and hates Nephrite for having the honour that Jadeite knows he himself lacks.

-

When Nephrite returns with news from Beryl, he finds it's not as bad as he'd feared. Beryl's far, far more thrilled with Endymion (that _is_ apparently his name, and not Mamoru) and his glorious return than she is upset about Kunzite and Zoisite's sudden surprising unexplained deaths. She sends both Nephrite and Jadeite out to Earth to harvest energy. With Moon, Mars, and Mask out of the way, and two of them to tackle Mercury, Jadeite figures it's a shoe-in.

That's when he meets Sailor V. She intrudes on his plan to infiltrate the local university, taking energy at midterm season (he admits to somewhat plagiarising the cram school idea, but he can't help it - the students are just so anxious all the time, it's too tempting). The showdown takes place in the library. He gets away, but the energy is lost and the cat - it's a white cat, now - gives him a nasty scratch for his troubles. The demon, Boka, is destroyed by some kind of energy beam shaped in a circle. V even throws it like Sailor Moon used to, it's eerie.

V is _strong_. Stronger than she looks, stronger than Mercury or Mars were individually. If Jadeite hadn't slit Sailor Moon's throat himself, he'd swear it was just a different alias.

Luckily, Nephrite managed to weasel out more energy from one person than Jadeite was getting from thousands, so between the two of them, they're safe.

But V returns in Jadeite's next three plans, which makes Beryl less and less happy. The first, Flau returns with a Valentine's Day rose caper that had gathered a lot of energy before V made the scene by spearing Flau with her own rose, made deadly by that weird crescent beam attack. The second plan, Garoben's energy-gathering gaming console, does really well until V gets wind of it, stops by the store, and wreaks havoc. Game over for Garoben.

The third plan V foils is a joint effort between Nephrite and Jadeite, involving a "win your dream wedding" scheme. Nephrite focuses his talents on a woman that the stars tell him is reaching her energetic peak, while Jadeite picks up energy from the mass hysteria that is two hundred bridezillas being offered cheap schlock, and V meets both of them at the altar. (Which was a damn shame, because that time, Jadeite had been winning the energy contest.) Both Nephrite's Widow and Jadeite's Dulesi get encircled by some chain and then blasted with V's energy beam disc.

"As much as I can't stand this," mutters Jadeite, "I've got to admit, one sailor killing two demons is impressive." He hasn't been able to get V off his mind. There's something about her that draws him, haunts him.

"I'd be more impressed if she weren't such a thorn in our sides. Think you can get rid of her, too?" Nephrite asks him. "You got the others pretty quickly."

"I had insider information then," he reminds. "I have no clue who this V person is."

"We'll draw her out with a really obvious scheme," Nephrite says. "Do you know if Endymion's done baking yet?"

"Almost there, but not yet," Jadeite replies. As Beryl's highest command, it had been Jadeite's duty to meet with the Queen more and more recently. Her new pet project involved taking the former Tuxedo Mask and... forcefully reevaluating his allegiances in a strange coffin-like apparatus. It didn't quite sit right with Jadeite for reasons he couldn't put his finger on. Probably because it didn't make much sense - why him, why not simply kill him while you were ahead? But Jadeite wasn't the one who found Endymion so heart-stoppingly attractive that he wanted the guy brainwashed.

Nephrite gives a non-committal hum. "Well, we'll think of something."

-

Nephrite's stars alert him to a girl getting in trouble for beating up bullies while he and Jadeite are still busy brainstorming ideas to get V out into the open, but when Nephrite doesn't return that evening, Jadeite gets worried.

He finds out when meeting with Beryl, alongside a newly-awoken Endymion, that the girl Nephrite found turned out to be Sailor Jupiter. And she's strong, too. Nephrite's plan didn't just not work, it failed spectacularly - like Garoben with Sailor Mercury, the first time so long ago, Sailor Jupiter too showed no reaction to Nephrite's implanted demon. And then V caught wind of it (somehow) and chained Nephrite to a tree.

So Jadeite watches, helpless, as Jupiter electrocutes a man he considers his friend.

He tries not to betray emotion, telling himself he should be thankful that Nephrite honoured him with enough trust to have divulged the name in advance (Jupiter, it turns out, is Makoto Kino). But Endymion gives him a long, searching look afterwards, once Beryl's swept out of the room, and it makes him feel cornered, spied on.

"I'm sorry about your friend," Endymion says. Then he lowers his voice to a threatening whisper. "But you know, there are no friendships here. So it's just as well you learn that the hard way."

It takes more of Jadeite's marvelous restraint not to punch him in his stupid face. Because Beryl wouldn't like that.

But Endymion's right. There are to be no friendships here. Jadeite's been a lone wolf for so long. He can keep on being one.

-

Once the Dark Prince Endymion, as he's now dubbed, is well enough to be of practical use, Beryl sends them both out to an amusement park to collect energy randomly from the crowd, along with more demons than they could possibly need. Endymion is reckless; Jadeite can't say anything about his performance to Beryl, obviously. Within a week, fifteen people have gone missing and more and more press damns the park. Those sailor girls will find out about it soon enough.

But V (who has now unmasked herself as Venus) and Jupiter are craftier than they look, and they manage to pick off the demons one by one until the odds are much better in their favour.

Jadeite waits just inside the machinery of the Ferris wheel for Jupiter to walk by. There's no way he'll be able to take her on without the advantage of surprise, he figures.

Surprise of surprises - the sailor who walks by is _Mercury_.

Blast. He should've gotten her earlier when he'd had the chance! Or gotten Nephrite to do it. Ami as Mercury is a much stronger opponent than he thought, stronger than she was as Ami, so he retreats with a dislocated shoulder behind one of the tents and tries to calm himself.

There, he hears a very interesting conversation.

"... make any sense. Why would Beryl do these things?"

"Because she wants to take over the world and immerse it in darkness. That's what the Dark Kingdom does - it wants everything to be dark."

"Perhaps Beryl _should_ rule this planet. Have you seen some of the things they do?"

"Mamoru -"

"It's Endymion, you silly cat."

"Endymion, then! Beryl has brainwashed you. This isn't like you! This isn't how you are! Don't you remember Usagi? Motoki? Your studies?"

There is silence. It appears Endymion is wavering.

"You wanted to study medicine, you know."

"Be that as it may, cat -"

"My name is Artemis. If you insist on being called Endymion, I expect the same respect."

"Whatever. Things are different, now."

"Just - think about it. You have my information, you can find me any time. I can _help_ you, Endymion. I can fill in the gaps in your memory where Beryl's wiped it clean. I can answer the questions you've got."

Then there is the sound of Endymion's footsteps falling away, and Jadeite runs to catch up with him.

"We should leave," he says, tapping the Dark Prince on the shoulder.

Endymion's eyes narrow instantly. "How much of that did you hear?" he hisses.

"How much of what?" Jadeite plays stupid for now, unsure of how deeply the cat had been able to dig.

"Nothing, never mind. Listen, I'm going to clean up here. You take the rest of that energy back to our Queen."

"Sure thing," Jadeite says, and disappears with the energy. He entrusts it to the demon Murid, who has a handy device to imprison energy and carry it with her, and reappears elsewhere in the park.

But there's no sign of Endymion, or the two (three!) sailor brats, or their cats.

Unhappily, he returns to Beryl, who is unpleasant after finding out her beloved has gone AWOL. But there's nothing Jadeite can do about that.

Unfortunately there's also nothing he can do about the punishment he receives for Endymion's truancy.

-

When Endymion returns, there's a nasty glint in his eye, which Jadeite doesn't particularly notice because Endymion usually has a nasty glint in his eye.

Jadeite finds out later that this particular look is the 'I'm going to kill you in your sleep' look, and Jadeite is too beaten by Beryl to do anything about it. At least Endymion retains some of Tuxedo Mask's mercy, because it all starts and finishes within three seconds with a sharp blade to the throat.

-

7.

So Jadeite wakes up in the parking lot again. Weeks of Nephrite has made him complacent and overly trusting. He needs to learn how to sleep with his eyes open. Perhaps that might help.

Yes. Blame Nephrite. All his fault.

Jadeite sends Flau away, and then reevaluates his priorities. He hasn't tried much so far - he hasn't even lasted longer than he originally did before he was Eternal Slept. It doesn't work if he leaves Tuxedo Mask alive because _that_ man has no qualms about killing him. It doesn't work if he brings Mask to Beryl, because the Dark Prince Endymion _also_ has no qualms about killing him. In fact, the only person in the Dark Kingdom that hasn't tried to kill him is Nephrite.

As for the Sailors, well ... he knows all their identities except for Venus. And he still doesn't know whether there are more. What Kunzite had said made an embarrassing amount of sense: think about how many planets there are. Is there a Sailor Uranus and Neptune? Is there a Sailor Rhea or a Sailor Ganymede? Hell, is there a Sailor Sun? A Sailor Comet? What about the asteroids? Does anything big enough for gravity to compress it into a sphere qualify for sailorship? Where is the line drawn?

It's worrisome. If Jadeite has to fight off a slew of sailors - well, he can hardly hold his own against three sailors, let alone a potentially infinite team. He gives a short, bitter, derisive laugh under his breath. If they keep multiplying, he might as well just cross the floor. Join the _winning_ team for once.

That gives birth to a shocking idea. Suppose... suppose the Dark Kingdom is the wrong side, and he was supposed to switch sides. Suppose this is why he has to keep repeating things until he gets it right. Is this what he's missing, allegiance to those Sailor brats?

Jadeite scoffs and shakes his head. That's ridiculous. Beryl would flay him alive if she knew what kind of treasonous thoughts he was thinking. She can never know. No one in the Dark Kingdom can know.

A voice behind him interrupts his thoughts, and he's gladder than he should be to hear it. "Aren't you scheduled for some kind of kooky energy collecting scheme right about now?"

Nephrite joins him where he has taken up his post - at the radio station building, on the rooftop, looking up at the stars. He leans easily on the guard rails, and then catches Jadeite's face. "Problems with the task at hand?"

"No," Jadeite replies, "it's not that."

"Penny for your thoughts?" Nephrite asks.

"What if..." he begins.

How to make this sound as non-crazy as possible?

"What if you were playing a game - like a computer game all the humans are playing - and you don't know any of the rules, but one thing you have noticed is you can never die? Every time you try, the level just ... starts over again."

"Hmm... I guess what I'd do is try and break the system. See what things I did would affect the game outcome. If you have infinite tries, then you should be able to figure out the rules by seeing what works and what doesn't work. What reinforces rewards."

"Suppose that nothing works," says Jadeite. "Suppose there are no rewards. What then?"

"It's an unsually bright night for philosophy," says Nephrite. "Or have you been drinking?" he adds, on a more teasing note.

Jadeite grimaces. But it reminds him. He has to remember that just because they were chummy in another 'life' doesn't mean they'll be as close now. Only one person appears to be cognisant of what else happened the previous times he'd failed, and that's Jadeite. His own memories are all he's able to take forward - no one else.

So Nephrite remembers nothing about their friendship.

"Oh, I'm just thinking silly thoughts," he tells Nephrite. Nephrite gives a half-hearted shrug and leaves him alone.

-

He gets Flau to scrap the radio station plan and puts her on the gym plan instead. Then, he tells her exactly how to dispose of Sailor Moon - what her real name is, where she will appear, and when, and what she will look like, and how to kill her. Surprise of surprises, the demon performs admirably. She's confused as to why Jadeite knows what he knows, but seeing someone else with Sailor Moon's blood on their hands is just as satisfying as seeing it on his own - perhaps more so, because it saves him having to wash his hands. Chalk one up for Zoisite's methods.

Beryl is impressed but not overly so: to her, Sailor Moon is still just a mild annoyance, not an actual force to be reckoned with. Zoisite is petulant, Nephrite is congratulatory, and Kunzite is ... well, Kunzite. Unruffled, unreadable, distant.

Jadeite meets with Nephrite for a celebratory drink in his quarters and they talk about plans for the fancy tuxedo man. Like him, Nephrite is concerned about the sporadic popping up of potential new senshi, but they both conclude that practicing on these twits will be decent practice for dealing with widespread vigilanteism once the Dark Kingdom takes over.

When they talk about the advent of the Dark Kingdom's takeover, they are both silent, and Nephrite swirls the whiskey in his glass like he's looking for something particularly engaging to do instead of talking about this topic. Like Jadeite, Nephrite has now set foot on Earth, and has seen this marvellous blue planet. There weren't even any humans around, so it really was an idyllic setting.

Jadeite studies him carefully. Later, he comes to the conclusion that of all of them, Nephrite is the least likely to backstab him ... but the most likely to backstab Beryl. He doesn't know why Nephrite's allegiance to the Queen should be weaker than his ties to any of the other generals (really, to Kunzite - Zoisite has distanced himself from everybody but Kunzite for centuries now and so neither Jadeite nor Nephrite really see eye-to-eye with him) and he can't find a decent explanation for it, either.

-

With the advent of Sailor Moon's demise, it changes the way things happen, and so Jadeite is no longer able to tell his demons where exactly to strike because he can no longer anticipate the coming of the Tuxedo Mask. There are no Mercury or Mars yet, and no V(nus) or Jupiter either.

So he gets Zoisite to do a plot involving time and clocks with the demon Ramua while Jadeite stays behind the scenes and watches. Tuxedo Mask shows up, exchanges some banter with Zoisite, destroys the main clock before Ramua has a chance to do anything useful, and then leaves without much of a way for either Ramua or Zoisite to get close, let alone Jadeite.

Zoisite is most unhappy about this. "You just let him ruin everything while you were watching!" he complains. "Forget Nephrite, you're the most useless one for sure."

"Tactics, Zoisite," Jadeite says, "we need to learn more about this guy's motivations before we can plan anything else."

But Beryl takes Zoisite's side and is much more vocal about her anger at not retrieving any energy.

Still, this is good. What Nephrite said made sense: it's important to see all the paths, see what happens in each state.

What he expects is that the chanelas will prove an easier way to hook Mamoru Chiba and keep him still for enough time that Jadeite can kill him. And using another plot first gets Zoisite angry, which means Zoisite will be more motivated to return the next time to finish Chiba off. That lets Jadeite work behind the scenes.

Sure enough, Zoisite is more than happy to return to get another chance at this annoying tuxedo guy, and Jadeite watches and learns. As he thought: there's a point where Tuxedo Mask as Mamoru Chiba enters the store, and speaks briefly to shopkeeper-demon Iguara before checking out the merchandise. Likely trying to see what kind of threat these strange creatures pose. Jadeite recognises a reconnaissance mission when he sees one.

The magic works as well on Chiba as on everybody else, and for about ten seconds, Chiba is transfixed ... until the talking black cat comes out of nowhere and knocks his head with a well-aimed jump, breaking the connection.

Jadeite grins. We'll strike then, he thinks, and he jumps off a building, not bothering to use magic to break his fall.

-


	3. Chapter 3

8.

Sure enough, he wakes up in the parking lot of FM-10, beside Flau.

Flau is, again, very confused when he tells her the plan's changed, but she goes along with it - Jadeite tries to keep everything true to form as the last time he did this. She gets Usagi at his command in the gym plan, and he gets Zoisite on the time plan with Ramua. Zoisite is every bit as pissed off at him as he was before, when Tuxedo Mask foils them, but Jadeite promises that Zoisite can have Mask next time, saying something about tactics. Exactly as before.

Right on schedule, in the chanela store, Jadeite watches a tall, dark haired, blue-eyed man enter the store. Iguara gives him her spiel about how awesome chanelas are, Chiba ignores it, and proceeds to look one right in the eye. And just like that he's hypnotised, and immobile.

Like lightning, out of nowhere, Zoisite strikes, as Jadeite told him, _before_ the cat can enter stage left. But Zoisite's technique is mostly flashy: he wants a fight, he wants the man to suffer for being a thorn in the side of the Dark Kingdom. Jadeite, on the other hand, wants a quick and sure death. He's learned with Usagi and the bath that the longer you play with your prey, the longer the prey has time to turn the tables or at least get away.

So because of Zoisite's theatrics, Jadeite winds up having to do it all over again.

-

9.

This time, Jadeite tells Iguara that she'll be taking care of Tuxedo Mask instead of Zoisite. Demons, Jadeite has come to realise, can be remarkably efficient.

But Zoisite doesn't like that much, and while Iguara is busy hypnotising Chiba, Zoisite gets busy backstabbing Jadeite. So much for that strategy.

-

10.

This time, Jadeite takes matters into his own hands. Tells Iguara to distract Zoisite for a bit, while he takes care of their newest customer. Gives Mamoru Chiba the spiel while the man ignores him and spies a little red chanela; wonders if the man has any clue whatsoever that the charming, effervescent young chanela-seller is actually a murderous Dark Kingdom agent in disguise.

Jadeite kills Chiba from behind easily, with almost no effort required, so he supposes he's a decent actor.

But then the cat, out of nowhere, gets Jadeite in the face, and before he has a chance to retaliate - like grab the beast by the tail and shove it down a sewer or something - it scampers out the door.

And that's when Jadeite realises: _the cat._ This was the black one this time. Sailor Moon always had it around her to begin with. Then when Mercury came along, the cat was also there. And wasn't the cat on Kigaan's bus when they discovered Mars? How Jadeite wishes he had access to that footage now!

Maybe that cat is the one tracking the senshi down. It's a crazy idea, but then again, here's Jadeite, repeating his life from the first moment he stepped onto Earth over and over and over again. Crazy is a relative term.

-

11.

Jadeite repeats everything from the last time, except now, he instructs Iguara to trap the cat before it has a chance to escape. With Moon gone and Mask down, and Iguara having conjured up a neat little cage of energy, Jadeite advances upon the cat with a knife.

"What the hell are you doing?" asks Zoisite. "We got the guy already. We don't need to harm innocent animals!"

Jadeite tries not to scream with rage. Next time, he's bringing Nephrite. Nephrite asks fewer questions. "This is not an innocent animal," he explains. "This little scumbag of a cat's the one finding new sailors!"

"What?" Zoisite asks. "That's insane. It's a _cat_. Iguara, stop that." And the cage disappears, because all the demons are bound to obey the generals. "Come here, sweetheart," Zoisite coos to the cat.

Worse still, the cat purrs and nuzzles Zoisite's ankles until Zoisite bends and scratches its ear. Fine, thinks Jadeite, you want that stupid thing's fangs and claws in your neck, you be my guest. But the cat plays dumb and makes him look even more crazy than he already feels until he starts to doubt himself.

The next plan they embark on gets foiled by Sailor Mars. With a black cat on her arm. "I told you so," he tells Zoisite.

"Oh, shut up," Zoisite replies.

He still knows who Mars is, however, and so he creeps up into the shrine one evening like he had done before. But this time the girl is ready, somehow, like her activation as a sailor makes her premonitions three times more powerful and five times more accurate.

Jadeite also finds out that he doesn't like burning to death.

-

12.

Unfortunately, bringing Nephrite changes things just enough that Tuxedo Mask is no longer so easily distracted with the chanelas. This changes precisely when Jadeite's able to go for the kill. So instead Jadeite lets him have this one and figures they'll get him next plan. Nephrite's not anywhere near as impatient as Zoisite - something about star-communing must make one pretty calm - so Jadeite doesn't mind.

The next plan is Kyurene's subliminal waves, which currently hasn't worked once. And it doesn't work this time, either, but it gives them a convenient striking point when Mamoru Chiba walks into a jazz club and orders a ginger ale. He stays there for the entire evening until the pianist is finished in his quest to track Kyurene's movements. Better still, the cat perches on his shoulder the whole time.

Gotcha, Jadeite thinks, and jumps off a building.

-

13.

Jadeite contemplates not even bothering with the chanela plan after he slays Moon at the gym. However, he supposes this would likely change things, and flinging himself off a building isn't getting any more amusing. Nor, for that matter, is the run-in with Flau - which still creeps him out a little, because she's supposed to have been sliced in two. He's gotten used to delivering his lines in almost exactly the same way and having the exact same reactions when the exact same things happen, just like the first time it all went down.

Really, he'd make a fantastic actor.

To summarise: Flau's radio station plot gets foiled by Sailor Moon, whom Jadeite kills in the next plot at the gym, which ordinarily would draw Tuxedo Mask but Jadeite is quick like a bunny about it and kills her before Mask is on-scene. The next plot is Ramua and the clock store where Nephrite and Jadeite allow Tuxedo Mask to foil their plans. The plot after that is Kyurene tracking down the jazz musician, who has her subliminal tape.

"So let me get this straight," Nephrite says. "We go in there, grab this guy, and get out ... how? Won't other patrons notice?"

Jadeite admits it's a point of oversight. "So we'll be bouncers then. You let Chiba pass, I'll be the inside security. Let me know if he hasn't got the cat with him." But Jadeite already knows Chiba will.

Mamoru Chiba plus cat show up right on time, and they take a seat at the right table. But seconds before Jadeite can walk up to him and tell him he's in the wrong place and that he's being escorted out (to the dumpster behind the club!), Chiba gets up and leaves the main room to find the washroom.

But that's not the way it works, thinks Jadeite. Chiba is supposed to get there, sit down, and stay for awhile!

The only thing he'd changed was stationing Nephrite outside. Was there something Nephrite said to Chiba that tipped him off?

At least, Chiba can't possibly bring the cat into the washroom, unless he intends to leave. But that's what he does. That's when Jadeite knows for sure something's up. "Hey, stop it right there! You, uh ..." Jadeite stalls, and he blurts the only thing that comes to mind that might make the man stop and not draw attention. "You can't go in there with animals!"

Jadeite races into the bathroom after him, but it's empty. The window's open, so he crosses to peer outside and see if the man's left the building entirely - and the next thing he knows, he's on the ground and his head is killing him.

"You're Jadeite," Tuxedo Mask, now transformed, says from above. "You're the one from the radio station. 'Midnight Zero'."

"Yes, yes," Jadeite coughs, getting to his feet, "very clever, you figured me out, and all that."

"I haven't figured a single thing out!" Tuxedo Mask sneers. "I don't know who you people are, where you people come from or what you people want, besides energy. I don't know what the hell you want it for, either!" He whips his cane around and points it at Jadeite, who only just rolls out of the extending weapon's way in time.

" _Now_ , Tuxedo Mask!" says the cat, from the window sill.

But at the same time, the door behind Mask opens. "What the hell is going on here?" asks Nephrite.

"Get him!" cries Jadeite from the floor.

But Nephrite does not get him. Instead he pauses and looks at the man in confusion.

Tuxedo Mask returns the stare. "You're working _with_ this man?" he says.

"You - i-it was you. Where do I know you from?!" Nephrite asks. "What is it - it's like it's on the tip of my tongue. There's something about you that I can't place. What is it?"

"I told you before, you don't know me!" But Tuxedo Mask looks a lot more rattled now, and makes a move to escape past Nephrite and out the door. Nephrite catches him by the waist and hurls him back to the floor.

Jadeite seizes the opportunity and twists up to get on top of Mask, straddling him, fighting him blade versus cane, deaf to Nephrite's pleas to stop and think things through for just a second. They lose their balance and tumble down, grappling for a bit as Tuxedo Mask gets a few good hits in with the cane, until Jadeite calls out, "If you'd like to stop being useless, Nephrite, now is a fantastic time!"

Nephrite manages to peel Tuxedo Mask off of Jadeite long enough that Jadeite can stagger to his feet. The cat hisses at him from the window sill but he ignores it. You're next, he thinks. He raises his hands to blast the man with energy - he's pretty sure Nephrite could take it, in case his aim is off.

But before he has a chance to work his magic, Nephrite beats him to the punch.

"Stop this," Nephrite says, one hand raised in protest to Jadeite, one arm flung about Tuxedo Mask's midsection. Mask is struggling to get out of his grasp so Nephrite throws him to the ground and pins him there with magic. "Look, I want answers before I want heads to roll, and that means both of you, so quit it now. And you," he says to Tuxedo Mask, "off with that nonsense." He leans down to rip the mask off the man's face, exposing Mamoru Chiba again.

"What the hell is up with you, Nephrite? You've got him pinned, kill him now!" Jadeite says. He would prefer to pretend there is no whiny note in his voice.

But Nephrite isn't even really listening to Jadeite anymore. "Who are you?" he asks Chiba.

Chiba holds his hands out in defence. "Look, I'm just - a guy, okay? My mission is to protect Sailor Moon. If that fails, then -"

"Don't tell them anything!" the cat cries. Jadeite would kill for a shotgun right about now but as he can't do anything, he just gives it his dirtiest look.

"Luna, it's all over," says Chiba. "Sailor Moon is dead. She's been dead for three weeks now." He sighs, looking depressed. "At this rate I'll never get a hold of the Silver Crystal."

"The Silver Crystal?" Nephrite asks. "Why do you want that?"

"I need it to restore my memories," Chiba explains. "Long story short, I don't know who I am, where I come from, anything. I just woke up in a hospital bed when I was six. That's all I know."

Nephrite gives Jadeite a strange look. "We have to take him to Beryl."

"No!" Jadeite says. "That's exactly what we should not do!"

"She could help him regain his memories without the need of the Crystal."

"Oh, she won't do that!" Jadeite scoffs. "She'll just take one look at him, cry and pine over her long lost Prince Endymion, and brainwash the guy. And then some day later when we're all out, he'll backstab us all to itty bitty pieces."

" _What?_ " says the cat, "What did you just call him?" at the same time Nephrite says, "That name. What was that name?"

Even Tuxedo Mask looks intrigued - intrigued and terrified. "What did you just call me?" he says in a low, quavering voice.

Jadeite sighs. This is such a mess. "Dammit, Nephrite. Next time I'm bringing Kunzite, because Zoisite sucks at anything, and things get so complicated with you. We are not, I repeat, not, going to have a happy little conversation with our enemies the fancy tuxedo man and the talking cat. Okay?"

"Jadeite," says Nephrite. "The name. Now."

He sighs again and looks away. "Prince Endymion. That's what _she_ called him, anyway. I don't know what it means anymore than you do."

"'She' being this Beryl person," says Mask.

"Yes, her."

"And she's your leader?" asks the cat.

"I am _not_ talking to a _talking cat!_ "

"Listen," begins Mask, in an appeasing tone of voice. "Maybe we can strike some sort of deal here. I don't want to be revealed to this Beryl person - I don't like the idea of being brainwashed -"

Nephrite tries for reasonable. "We don't really know that she'd do that."

"Yes, we do, Nephrite," snaps Jadeite. "Finish your thought, fancy man, then I'll tell you how stupid it is."

"As I was saying," Mask says tersely. "Maybe we can work together. I want my memories back. You want the Silver Crystal. All I know is access to the Silver Crystal will give me my memories, but I'm sure that won't take up very much time. If we can set aside our differences to find the Crystal, then maybe we can both have what we need."

"We _also_ need energy," Nephrite reminds him.

"So I'll turn a blind eye to your dealings - so long as you don't kill anybody - and in return, you guys don't turn me in to Beryl the Brainwasher. We all walk away and live another day."

There's silence. The cat seems unhappy but thankfully holds its tongue for now. Nephrite and Mask are sizing each other up, and Jadeite's getting awfully sick of this ridiculousness.

"This is beyond dumb," Jadeite insists, and at the same time Nephrite says, "You've got a deal."

-

Jadeite can barely wait for them to get back to his quarters after the post-mortem with Beryl (as if the Kyurene plan worked for once!) before he explodes at Nephrite. "What the hell was that?"

"I can explain," Nephrite begins.

"You sure better," Jadeite retorts. "I mean, what are you anyway? Some kind of -" his voice drops very low - "some kind of traitor??" he hisses.

"No!" Nephrite whispers in return. "I just, I just have this weird feeling that something big can come of this. Something big and good."

"Good for Beryl or good for us?" he accuses.

Nephrite shuts up and blushes. "Can't it be both?" he asks timidly.

"You _are_ a traitor," says Jadeite. It's a sad realisation and he shakes his head. Well, this is just great. Jadeite _should_ turn him in, but - can he?

"If being a traitor means I seek answers to why I'm missing a whole chunk of memories then yes, I'm a traitor, okay?" Nephrite says. "Can you honestly not tell me you experience the same thing? I know you do because we talked about it once."

"We agreed never to speak of that conversation again," hisses Jadeite.

Both he and Nephrite are speaking in very quiet voices, like someone's watching. But Jadeite would have known if there were someone in his room, and there isn't anybody except Nephrite. All the same. It feels like the walls have eyes and ears. "If Beryl trusted us," reasons Nephrite, "we could have our entire memories. If I have no recollection of how I became a general for her, how I started working for Metallia, hell, nothing more than faint sort of wispy impressions of a memory of a childhood, then she _doesn't trust us_. I need to know why she feels she can't."

Jadeite snorts. "Well, I don't see how making a deal with the fancy man and his ridiculous familiar is going to do anything for you."

"That man knows more than he's letting on. The cat, too. I think they'll be willing to tell us more than Beryl would. Besides," Nephrite's eyes narrow, "'don't take him to Beryl, she'll brainwash him'? You don't trust her either."

"I never said I didn't trust her!" Jadeite says. "Stop putting words in my mouth!"

"I don't need to, I already know how you feel about it." Nephrite leans in closer, too close, and bends to whispers into his ear, "I _know_ you don't trust her. I _know_ you want your memories too."

"That, th-that's different," he stammers, his heart pounding so hard he can hear it. He can feel the blood rushing in his cheeks and tries to blame it on Nephrite's hot breath skating over his ears and throat.

"Come on," Nephrite growls, "giant gaps in your memory that you can't explain? Knowing that if Beryl found out about our tuxedo friend she'd brainwash him? If she can do that, _what's to have stopped her from brainwashing us?_ "

Jadeite's instinct is to back up and slap Nephrite across the face but Nephrite catches his wrist and holds it tightly in mid-air. "I should kill you for thoughts like these," Jadeite says, unable to hold Nephrite's gaze. "Or report you to Beryl."

But I won't, he thinks guiltily. And Nephrite knows it.

Satisfied, Nephrite lets go of his wrist. "Give me some time. Help me keep this from Beryl and the other two. In the meantime, let me see what kind of information I can get from them, from this - this Endymion. Tuxedo Mask. Whatever his name is."

Feeling wretched, he promises Nephrite what he's asking for with an awkward jerk of a nod.

"His identity is Mamoru Chiba," he tells Nephrite. "I can give you his address."

-

Jadeite's curiosity isn't satisfied with just that, however.

First of all, can he trust Nephrite? It's starting to look like Nephrite either wants to defect or has serious doubts about the Dark Kingdom. Didn't they all take vows of some sort, swearing their allegiances to the Dark Throne?

Second of all, can he trust himself?

They must have taken vows. But Jadeite doesn't remember any.

But this is who he is! Jadeite of the Dark Kingdom, who believes in the way of the future lit by energy and domination of the light by the sacred guardian of chaos, Queen Metallia. Chaos is the natural order of the universe. He knows this. He's proven it within himself.

...Hasn't he?

What if Nephrite's right, Jadeite wonders, what if Beryl really did -

Jadeite physically stops himself from thinking any more. He will not sin like this, like a coward.

Last of all, can he trust Tuxedo Mask? Who's to say he won't turn both Nephrite _and_ Jadeite in, in order to barter for the Crystal? Most importantly, what if they find it and he doesn't give it back?

This and more doubts lead Jadeite to send a single message to Kunzite, for safekeeping. Then he follows Nephrite to Mamoru Chiba's small apartment and stakes out a spot on the balcony where he can listen in peace.

Besides, his own internal turmoil seems somehow placated here.

"... have to admit I'm surprised," Chiba is saying, as he approaches the kitchen (it's the closest room with sitting space linked to the bedroom by an open door, and the balcony door is open). "I wasn't sure how you were going to contact me."

"The Dark Kingdom has its sources," Nephrite says vaguely. "Where's the cat?"

"Luna's out at the moment."

"Official business?"

"Mm-hmm." There's a silence before a sigh and then, "I guess if we're going to trust each other I'll have to be a little less tight-lipped. Yes, official business. Luna's the one who scouts for new senshi."

Ami Mizuno, Rei Hino, and Makoto Kino, thinks Jadeite from the balcony. And whoever that V girl is, but she has her own cat. So it _was_ the cats all along! There's a certain vindication in being right.

"Are they easier to find during our energy collections?"

"Only if you happen to do some real harm, I think. If you were to steal energy from people in such a way that the drain were insidious and almost completely ignorable, I doubt you'd ping any Sailor radars."

"We also wouldn't get a lot of energy that way."

"What do you need the energy for, anyway?"

Silence. Will Nephrite really tell him everything about Metallia? That's not a good idea. And it's one more argument for Nephrite the Dark Kingdom traitor.

"So, we serve this queen -"

"'We' being you and Jadeite?"

"There are two more, you haven't met them yet. And then there's the demons. Anyway, we all serve Beryl, but Beryl in turn serves an entity we just call Metallia. I don't know much about her or it - Kunzite's been our resident expert after Beryl - but if we give her enough energy, she'll be able to tell us where to find the Silver Crystal."

Jadeite, on the balcony, puts a hand to his head.

"I see," Chiba says. "I think I'm going to make some tea."

"Oh, tea would be nice," Nephrite replies.

Sometimes, Nephrite, Jadeite thinks, you are really too much.

Over the course of the next hour, Nephrite and the fancy tuxedo man _take tea_ and discuss each other's strengths and weaknesses. It's absurd, but useful. As Tuxedo Mask, Chiba can apparently fly and perform minor teleportations. He's also got a supernatural ability to sense when people are in grave danger, though it worked the best on Sailor Moon.

In return, Nephrite tells him about the Dark Kingdom. He tells him about himself, about Jadeite, about Zoisite and Kunzite. When he speaks about Beryl Jadeite notices a change in Nephrite's vocabulary and tone of voice, from laid-back and colloquial - almost friendly - to a much more formal, stiff language, almost like the more he says, the more she'll hear. Like saying her name gives it some kind of power. It's a reverence that comes with respect and fear, and to anybody else, it might have been perfectly credible. Jadeite is not fooled.

Nephrite tells him about their goals in the Kingdom, and their work so far. Chiba seems unconvinced about it all; then again, Jadeite notes, Nephrite isn't exactly trying to proselytise. In fact, Nephrite's tone of voice seems to suggest that he's doubting more and more the values he once espoused as loudly as any of the other Dark Kingdom generals.

Which is bad. Which is really, really bad. Jadeite doesn't want to have to kill him. But damn if Nephrite is not making it kind of hard!

Jadeite wishes he'd never listened in on Nephrite. He'd never have known what a traitor he could be. He'd never have to do something about it!

But Nephrite's forced his hand, now.

Jadeite really starts paying attention when Nephrite begins talking about a subject that is legitimately taboo for them: memories.

"I lost mine when I was six," Chiba is explaining. "My earliest memory ... I guess that'd be waking up in a hospital with bandages on my head. Being unable to remember my name. The doctors telling me I'd remember soon enough. Being told that they couldn't locate a father or a mother."

"Didn't they search the wreckage of the accident?" Nephrite asks.

"Fun thing is, I was told they did. Years later, when I was perhaps ten, I found evidence that there was no car accident, that I had woken up twice before I lapsed into the coma that somehow erased my memories. During my moments of lucidity, they had told me it was a house fire and nothing could be recovered. Then later they told me it was a sailing accident... Of course, I can't blame the hospital. They were just going off what the paramedics said. The problem was the paramedics all had conflicting stories."

"You think they were trying to hide something from you?"

"I think it was bigger than that. I think all the paramedics literally saw something different. A vision of what happened. So that nobody knows what it really was." Chiba adds, in a murmur, "You guys have that ability. You and your demons. You can make people see things, can't you?"

"When we first started drawing energy, did you think it was us? Who'd killed your parents?"

Silence, while Chiba thinks. "I suspected something like that at first. When I saw the first demon for myself, I thought, well, that's something crazy enough to explain my situation. But now I'm not so sure, despite the fact that you people seem to have some experience in brainwashing."

"Not me. Just Beryl, and that's just according to Jadeite. And I think... I think she may have done it to us."

"What's the earliest thing you remember?"

Nephrite takes a moment to reflect. "I woke up in a bed I didn't recognise. I was told that by the grace and magic of the celestial Metallia, I had been restored to my former glory at great personal cost, and that serving her would be ample gratitude. Apparently there was a battle, and even though we outnumbered them, the enemy had a technical advantage in the Silver Crystal and its power. I've heard enough about this battle, but I don't remember being there. I don't remember fighting."

"Nothing before that?"

"Nothing before waking up. Not my childhood, not growing up, not anything."

"So you don't have parents either," Chiba murmurs.

"If I did, they're long since dead."

"How do you know?"

"Because I stopped counting the years around five hundred." Jadeite remembers the 'birthday' parties they used to have. That was when Zoisite and he were a lot closer. He remembers Zoisite's terrible attempt at cake before they all gave up and dove into the liquor instead.

There's a pang in his heart, or whatever Metallia put in there that passes for it. How dare Nephrite share this with an outsider. That was _theirs_.

A snort. "Well, you sure look good for five centuries."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Nephrite answers, though his coy tone of voice seems to suggest amusement and - flirtation?

This situation is just getting more and more screwed up. He's _glad_ he sent the message when he did. He's _glad_ he told Kunzite what Nephrite was doing: defecting.

Which is when the cat finds him on the balcony and claws him a structurally superfluous new nostril. Jadeite's not proud of his undignified and considerably less than manly screaming.

Unfortunately, it also alerts Chiba and Nephrite to the balcony where they find Jadeite trying to launch the cat off it.

"Let go of her!" yells Chiba, at the same time that Nephrite says quietly, "Well, that's disappointing."

"What did you expect!?" Jadeite shrieks, to be heard over the yowling cat in his hands. "You're not trustworthy at all! Nephrite, I _had_ to report you for this, I had no choice!"

"You reported me?" says Nephrite calmly, holding his hand out, and Jadeite feels a certain energetic tingle around his wrists and ankles as they snap, almost magnetically, to the bars on Chiba's balcony. This is Nephrite's doing! "No, Jadeite. I won't be taken in again."

"She is your Queen!"

"She's our keeper! She removed our memories and indoctrinated us!"

"You _owe her_ your loyalty!"

"Oh, because she's so loyal to us? Because she trusts us so much?"

Chiba takes care of the cat, who, now that Jadeite is firmly bound, leaps off his chest and into Chiba's arms. Jadeite twists and turns but the bindings at his wrists and ankles won't budge. "Let me go," he grunts.

"Not unless you behave," says Nephrite.

"This is the opposite of behaving. Even as we speak, someone is coming for us. Kunzite himself, probably."

"Oh?" Nephrite arches a dark brow. "And how would he know exactly where I've gone?"

"Because I told him," says Jadeite. The cat, Chiba, and Nephrite all glare at him. Jadeite is ill-fond of the judgement but he knows he's the one in the right! "Even if I hadn't, we've been gone too long, she would've figured out what you'd done!" But Nephrite does not budge and his expression remains steadfast. Damn his stubbornness, even at a time like this!

"If she keeps such close tabs on you," reasons the talking cat, "how come it took you this long to start suspecting her?"

"We owe her our allegiance," says Jadeite, "she's the reason we're even alive."

"We're over several hundred years old. Should we really be alive?" murmurs Nephrite.

"I like living just fine myself, thanks!"

But Nephrite is shaking his head. "This doesn't add up, Jadeite. You know what, _let_ her send Kunzite after me, or Zoisite, or a million demons, I don't care, I have to figure out what this means."

"If she's sending someone after you," warns Chiba, "she'll take me too! We need help."

The cat leaps out of Chiba's arms onto the balcony railing. "I'll get the girls!"

Chiba is distracted, his gaze distant, as he thinks. "They won't be enough," he says. "Kunzite's powerful, Zoisite maybe but it won't be enough, it never was ..."

It's then that Jadeite realises something and he stops struggling. "How would _you_ know?"

Unless Chiba remembers the previous lives. Jadeite hates to admit it, but the thought that he's not alone in this has his heart pounding a race in his ribcage.

All of a sudden Chiba doesn't seem so bad.

"That's right," says Nephrite, "you've never seen them fight. You've never even met them."

Chiba is agape. Stunned into silence, he looks from Jadeite to Nephrite and back again in horror. "I - I don't -"

He covers his mouth, aghast.

"How do I know that?" he asks, pitiful.

Nephrite's attention fails him enough that there's some give to the energy bindings around Jadeite's wrists and ankles for him to slip through, but Jadeite is too bewildered to take any advantage. Too bewildered to leave, even though Kunzite will be here any moment and Jadeite doesn't want to look like the defector.

But if he doesn't want to look traitorous, why is he leaning in to hear their conversation?

Nephrite rounds on Chiba, cups Chiba's jaw gently in his hands, stares into Chiba's eyes and says, "Trust your instincts. Don't think, just speak. And don't stop talking. What about Kunzite's power?"

"You said - there was a battle," says Chiba in an almost hypnotised monotone. He holds Nephrite's gaze and his limbs look so lax it's like if Nephrite lets him go, he'll crumple. "And - and Kunzite - h-he had a great staff, with a point at one end, he stabbed it through another girl - no, it's Venus, it was Venus, he stabbed it through her chest, then he kicked her body off it and he left her to die - and all the while Beryl had infected you all, with some - some power, because you were _my_ generals, _my_ guardians -"

Chiba reaches shaky hands up to Nephrite's and grasps him around his wrists. "You were _mine,_ " he says. "That's where I know you from."

There's a weird whirring in Jadeite's head that he doesn't like. This feels - too dangerous, too much. Kunzite will be here at any moment. He shouldn't've told Kunzite.

They need answers, and the truth is right there, in his grasp.

They should get inside, or get off this balcony anyway, before -

An explosion rocks the building and Chiba's balcony shakes like mad. It'd be an earthquake if it weren't for the fact that it's targeted, and there's another large black void coming their way. That's Kunzite's power. And they're too late.

The balcony breaks apart, and in the ensuing shrieking and smoke, they lose sight of Chiba and the cat. Did they fall? Did they jump inside? Once the dust clears, they're nowhere to be found. So much for fancy man's flight skills.

Nephrite's reflexes, meanwhile, were better than Jadeite's - he holds onto Chiba's balcony - or what remains of it, a single piece of rebar - with one arm, and Jadeite dangles from the other.

"Well! What have we here?" calls a jeering voice. Jadeite looks around and finds Zoisite perched in midair, his legs crossed as he floats.

"Her Majesty would have a word," says Kunzite. "As it seems you two have pursued an alternate plan. Perhaps you might like to include her in it." He waves his hands and a void appears, doubtless leading them back to the Dark Kingdom.

Jadeite tightens his grip on Nephrite's hand and says, "No."

"No?" Zoisite asks.

"No?" asks Nephrite, sounding hopeful.

"'No' was not an option on the table," says Kunzite.

Jadeite ignores them both in favour of Nephrite. "Look," he says. "I want you to know, you were right. I was wrong. But - you have to listen to me. This has happened before, and I'll make it happen again, a-and I'll figure it out this time! You have to trust me. Let me go. I won't die," Jadeite adds, if that matters. "I'll find you again and I'll tell you everything."

"She won't let you die," says Nephrite. "You're the only other one who heard him. You're the only one who would _talk_ to me about - about the memories, about the battle we don't remember fighting. She'll find you, and she'll make you forget. Like she's done before -"

There's a sound of something slashing and Nephrite grunts in pain - Zoisite's stabbed him in the shoulder, the one that's holding on to Jadeite. So Jadeite lets go, and instead of dropping into the sucking void Kunzite's spelled up that'll take him back to the Dark Kingdom, he swerves midair, aims for the ground and lets it rush up to meet him.

-


	4. Chapter 4

14.

And he wakes up in front of the radio station.

"Ready to get to work?" asks Flau.

"Oh, you have no idea," he mutters.

He sends Flau away, and prepares to lean over the rooftop and brood for an hour. Doing that means Nephrite comes and checks up on him. It always has before. But this time, Nephrite doesn't come.

Was he busy, did Jadeite not do it correctly? Maybe it's because he said something slightly different to Flau? Very small errors and deviations could propagate. He returns to the Dark Kingdom specifically to seek Nephrite out.

Nephrite is in his quarters, and very surprised to see Jadeite. "Shouldn't you be -"

"On Earth, gathering energy. I know. Look," says Jadeite, and he spills the whole story about Mamoru Chiba - Endymion - Beryl's brainwashing - the fancy flying tuxedo man, the talking cat - murdering the (multiple!) sailor senshi - the whole nine yards.

About halfway through Nephrite stops him and disappears. Jadeite looks around for him, but he's just - gone. Was it something he'd said?

Not a moment later Beryl appears behind him. It's surreal - it's rare for her to venture from her throne. Zoisite once joked that maybe she _couldn't_ leave because she was stuck there, because she was part of the throne itself, or rooted in place.

And then Beryl had called for Zoisite, and they hadn't seen him for a week, and when he'd returned he'd been different.

"I've heard a disturbing rumour," says Beryl, sinuous and sweet.

Jadeite backs up against the wall. Beryl advances, step by step.

It's not the first time he's feared her (that's how she rules the Dark Kingdom, respect through fear) but it is the first time in a long while that he's felt what fear is. Jadeite's not concerned that he'll die - he no longer thinks he will. If she sentences him to Eternal Sleep, well - let her! He'll just wake up in front of the radio station, won't he?

"Come with me," says Beryl, and her tone brooks no argument, so mutely, with shuffling steps, he does.

She leads him into a dark chamber with a raised glimmering dais, upon which is what looks like a coffin.

"Get inside," she says.

He has no choice. He looks at the coffin and something in the deep recesses of his mind triggers, activates.

A wretched dark force, the smell of organ meat, the metallic taste of blood, a gaping yaw of a mouth with too many yellow teeth stuffed into crimson gums, and they shift around as they gnash him to pieces, a sharp hot piercing sound, a buzzing or a humming, droning in the back of his head, like a fly he wants to swat, but he can't move, his arms are pinned where he is in this tiny white coffin. The drone grows louder and louder until it's all he can hear, as the radiation intensifies...

"If you're my loyal retainer," says Beryl, putting one clawed hand on his shoulder, and digging the nails in as she pushes him down towards the coffin, "you would do this. You would obey me without question!"

Nephrite was right. This is brainwashing. This must have been how she brainwashed them in the first place.

Jadeite keeps his mind every time he dies. It's like a smooth progression from one life to the next, except that the next always takes place in front of that damn radio station. But he remembers everything. If he lets her do this, if he lets her destroy his memory... there's no telling what would happen. It could set him back on figuring out what is going on every time he dies. He'd start from scratch. He wouldn't even remember the senshi identities! He'd remember nothing about Mamoru Chiba, the fancy tuxedo man, whose name is Endymion and who claimed in a daze that in another life, _they were his guardians._

It's too much.

"No," says Jadeite. "No!"

He twists and strikes her across the face. She cries out as she covers her cheek where he's hit her and staggers back, bent over, hunched with her staff in hand. It begins to glow precariously.

His only advantage was surprise - Beryl did _not_ expect him to do this.

Jadeite quickly steps off the dais, trying to put some distance between them but Beryl is there in a heartbeat next to him, her terrifyingly gaunt hand looking skeletal. She removes it and beneath, where her beautiful porcelain skin was, is a series of cracks beneath which oozes something red, something that smells like organ meat, some pulsating blood-red force.

"Metallia," Jadeite whispers.

" _You will not sully her divine name!_ " shrieks Beryl in a thousand dissonant voices. She rears up like a coiled snake prepared to lunge and her jaw unhinges like one too. Out of terror Jadeite trips over his own feet and falls backwards on his ass, and he can't crabwalk fast enough out of her striking distance. The staff comes down with a beam of light or radiation and he hears a vicious sizzling sound before he feels the immense pain, and it seems to last and last until he finally, mercifully, blacks out.

-

15.

Jadeite has never been so happy to see that radio station.

"So," says Flau next to him, "we're doing this?"

"You know what, you go on ahead," says Jadeite shakily. "I need to think."

It was too fast. That must have been it. Nephrite always, _always_ wants to talk about memories when it's the worst time for Jadeite, and Jadeite - well, Jadeite doesn't know because Jadeite is never the one talking to Nephrite about these things. Maybe Nephrite is only ever talking about them because he knows it bugs Jadeite in the first place.

But that can't be the case. Nephrite's awed voice with Chiba, his openly shocked expression, his haunted eyes. No, he _wants_ to know about the memories, but he knows it's too risky. He knows he has to protect himself, and that's why he's never minded Jadeite doing the exact same thing.

He gave me up, thinks Jadeite. Well. At least that made them one for one on betrayals.

But it wasn't because Nephrite didn't trust him. At least, not necessarily. It was too suspicious. Because it was tailor-made something Nephrite wanted more information on, and Jadeite knew that, and he couldn't trust that it wasn't exploitative. Jadeite can't even blame him! If Zoisite showed up the next day with something Jadeite wanted badly on a silver platter - like Sailor Venus' civilian identity, which is the only one he lacks - well, he'd think it was a trick, too. Nephrite was just heading him off at the pass.

It wasn't Jadeite. That is, it wasn't what Nephrite knows Jadeite is.

Is that what Jadeite is, anymore? He doesn't even know.

Is Jadeite a traitor?

Jadeite needs to be more subtle about it with Nephrite, he needs to convince Nephrite that he can be trusted, that Jadeite is being genuine. That he also wants to know about the memories.

But, _does_ he? Or does he just want Nephrite on his side the way Kunzite is always on Zoisite's side?

Well. Maybe not _completely_ that way.

Then again... he remembers the sting of anger, watching Nephrite fawn all over Mamoru goddamn Chiba, and not really having the words to categorise it.

Hell, maybe it _is_ that way.

-

He lets Flau do whatever she wants and follows along in almost a daze. In the end it winds up looking much the same like it did eons ago: Sailor Moon foils Flau's plan, rips her in half with her magic spinning discus, and the fancy tuxedo man makes an appearance. Just the look of him in the sky has Jadeite ducked behind an airvent on the radio station roof top, watching him, trying to pick his brain over for that time he was this man's guardian.

But nothing's coming to mind. He thought there'd be some kind of flash of recognition, some memory, at least some sensation of knowing him. How'd Nephrite figure it out, anyway? Shouldn't that happen to Jadeite too?

It doesn't.

Jadeite follows in Tuxedo Mask's footsteps and leaps off the building, with one difference, which is that Jadeite doesn't bother to fly. His last thought as he meets the pavement is: he's _got_ to get Nephrite back on board again!

-

16.

Unfortunately, so much has happened that Jadeite doesn't remember exactly what steps he took last time. Having an exact recall seems to help in replicating the same outcome. When he normally sends Flau off, and sits there in the parking lot and has himself a think, Nephrite usually comes after him. So, that's what he does.

Last time, though, he'd had to go seek nephrite out. And there was nothing he'd said to Flau that would have changed that, surely? He can't remember.

As for the main events... he remembers the jazz club, Nephrite confronting Chiba... he remembers a confrontation in Nephrite's quarters - then in Chiba's apartment... Chiba was morose because his job was to protect Sailor Moon and Jadeite had killed her in the gym. Maybe that was it? It's a good place to start.

So, obediently, he takes his seat as Midnight Zero and reads out the letters, waiting for Sailor Moon to barge in and ruin his evening so he can make an eleventh hour escape. (It's just as well. Killing Sailor Moon so rarely works in Flau's radio show plot.)

-

Jadeite waits his turn for the gym plot, and then for Tsukino to sign up for the gym and ragequit after ten minutes of aerobics.

Still no Nephrite.

So instead of finding her in the bath, lazing around, he lets Flau take care of her and give her a quick death, while he returns to the Dark Kingdom to fetch Nephrite's help.

Once again, Nephrite doesn't know why Jadeite knows who Sailor Moon's civilian identity is, but he doesn't question it either. Jadeite supposes Nephrite's compliant about these matters because it gets results and that's more important for Beryl. And because that's exactly what Nephrite has probably come to expect from Jadeite on the rare occasion he's succeeding: total subservience to Beryl, and complete satisfaction in toeing the party line.

On the tip of Jadeite's tongue is everything he's learned about the memories, threatening to spill forth. Everything about Chiba, about his dual identity as the Tuxedo Man. Everything he knows Nephrite will want to know.

But he can't lean too hard into this or Nephrite will take it as a threat and do away with Jadeite like one, through Beryl, and maybe next time that happens Jadeite won't be so lucky, and there won't be any memories at all. He has to play it safe and lead Nephrite on.

It feels so deceptive! And that's odd, because Jadeite's never really had a big problem with this before, so why now? Isn't this part of the job, to lead people on and lie to them? And as Dark Prince Endymion said all those deaths ago, they have no friends in the Dark Kingdom.

So why does it bother him?

Nephrite, however, agrees to accompany him on his next mission, and so they get to the jazz club. Just like last time, Jadeite stations Nephrite as the bouncer.

Everything seems normal. Chiba enters, no cat, but Jadeite isn't complaining. (Of course, he realises, the cat would be with Sailor Moon; and failing that, since Flau has killed her, the cat must be either with Mercury, or Mars.) Everything seems fine, so Jadeite risks a quick chat outside with Nephrite.

"So when did you say the fancy man was coming?" asks Nephrite.

Jadeite is stunned. Did Chiba use a different _entrance?_ Did Chiba walk past Nephrite when Nephrite was looking the other way? What's the use of a bouncer who can't even catch everyone walking by!

Looks like Jadeite has to do things himself.

He tracks down Chiba in the bathroom as he's halfway out the bathroom window.

"So that's twice you can't use the front door, I take it?" asks Jadeite.

Chiba looks slightly ashamed.

"Look," says Jadeite. "I need answers, and _you_ need answers."

"Do I... know you?" says Chiba, somewhat perplexed.

Jadeite sighs. "No," he admits, "we've never met." And yet they have - many times - and Jadeite was once his _guardian_ , but that's all in so many past lives that it's kind of hard to keep track of.

Chiba drops back down into the bathroom. "Are you sure?" He narrows his eyes. "You look ... familiar, somehow."

Jadeite, heart pounding, holds his breath. Chiba gets up into his personal space and he freezes, like a deer in headlights.

_Does_ he remember? He remembered Nephrite, he remembered Kunzite and Zoisite... does he remember Jadeite, too?

It's like he's hot and cold at once with anticipation that Chiba will remember him, dread that he won't.

Please, thinks Jadeite to himself, please, if there's any justice in this universe.

"Tell me you remember something," whispers Jadeite. Because Jadeite doesn't and he is starved for memory - any memory.

The moment passes. "Anyway," says Chiba. "You're right, there's a perfectly good door." He brushes past Jadeite out the bathroom. Jadeite, numbly, follows on his heels. But Chiba walks out of the club and past Nephrite like it's nothing, and Nephrite says nothing, and notices nothing.

"Worst bouncer ever," mutters Jadeite.

-

So Nephrite returns to the Dark Kingdom, and the next plot is Garoben's cram school, where originally, Garoben found Mercury.

But not this time, because Jadeite goes to her house and kills her. As always, Ami is still awake (does this kid ever _sleep?_ ) and she fights him for life, but he pins her down and uses his full weight on top of her, then leans into it when he's got her by the throat, and then there's no coming back from that. Jadeite winds up exerting himself, panting for breath that Ami doesn't have.

One hand on her throat and he presses down.

It strikes him... he's kind of sorry about this.

But it has to be this way!

Doesn't it?

Ami, like Usagi, like Rei, like them all once he tracks them all down, does succumb in the end. And Jadeite's at something of a loss. He spends a single moment thinking about it, wondering why. She's got hair like Mamoru's, Jadeite decides, that must be it. Why this always disturbs him.

Oddly enough, that's when Tuxedo Mask decides to show. Jadeite vanishes before he can do anything, and before he can see.

So it's not just when Sailor Moon is in danger, it's also the other girls.

-

Well, Mercury and Moon dead, Mars and Jupiter to go. And Venus, too, if Jadeite can work out who _she_ is, and he probably can't.

He has two options. He's never seen what it's like if Mars and Jupiter are dead at the same time - he could see what that does.

Or he could try and use a threat to Mars and Jupiter to filter out Chiba, and get him alone.

If that would even work! After the fiasco at the jazz club, Jadeite assumes it wouldn't do any good to show up at his apartment, on his balcony. And it's a little too stalker of him.

Not that that's ever stopped Jadeite before.

But Nephrite had been invited in. Nephrite had gained Chiba's trust, somehow. Maybe Nephrite has answers.

-

Jadeite returns to the Dark Kingdom, victorious about Mercury and Moon, though with no energy. Nephrite's not there. _Zoisite_ is in his room instead.

"What are you doing here?" asks Jadeite.

Zoisite straightens, covering for something. "Nothing!" he says.

Sure. "Doesn't look like nothing."

"Don't see why you care," says Zoisite, and gives a petulant sniff. "You _know_ Nephrite's eyeing your job, I'd think you'd be a little attentive to these kinds of threats. More responsive to a healthy competition."

Jadeite narrows his eyes. He's not, but telling Zoisite that is fodder. Even if he dies at the end of tonight, he's not so keen on giving Zoisite any ammunition.

(And yet Zoisite wasn't always so bad. Birthday cake. A sense of humour more strange than it was cruel. Chiba must have trusted him if he was a guardian, too.

Yeah, well so much for that, 'cause Chiba doesn't remember shit, and Zoisite ain't what he used to be. Even if it's not his fault...

What does it matter. What does it all matter. If Jadeite really fucks up, he can just take a swan dive off Chiba's balcony!)

"I won't tell Nephrite," says Jadeite. He approaches cautiously. "About whatever you were doing here."

"There's a good boy," coos Zoisite, mocking. He turns to leave.

And a thought strikes him. "Hey, uh - look. Zoisite," Jadeite begins.

Is he really going to -?

Yeah, he is.

"This is going to sound crazy, but ... can you keep a secret?" he asks.

Because what's a threat to Nephrite is catnip to Zoisite. Jadeite can't believe he didn't realise it earlier - he can tell Zoisite any manner of crazy bullshit and the one thing Zoisite isn't likely to do is turn him over to Beryl for it, because it plays into Zoisite's hands to have people off-guard and spouting crazy bullshit, he's high chaos like that. Zoisite grins wide and leans in, preening. "Of _course_ ," he says.

So Jadeite tells him about the time loops. About the senshi. About Mars and Jupiter (which are news to this Zoisite, who has only heard of Moon, not even Mercury, this far in the time loop - and who certainly never heard of a talking cat who is not a cat at all). He doesn't tell Zoisite about the memories - that's a little too far - but he tells him about Tuxedo Mask and his relation to Beryl, and flirts around the topic enough to try and spark a light in Zoisite's eyes. See if anything catches when he mentions brainwashing.

Nothing. It's like he's dead inside. Great.

"Anyway," says Jadeite, concluding his long sob story. "What would you do?"

Zoisite laughs. "What a tale!" he says. "Well, I guess I'd kill the other senshi first."

"Then hit up the Tuxedo Man? Why not Tuxedo Man first?"

"But Tuxedo Man I'd give to Beryl," reasons Zoisite, "so that she'd promote me."

Jadeite snaps his fingers. "Tried that, remember? Didn't work."

"Oh, yeah," says Zoisite. He thinks. He looks a lot more normal when he thinks. Not cruel and cold, just puzzling over a particularly good riddle. It's a good look for him. Jadeite's cheeks warm, and he looks away. "I still think it's a case of figuring out who you have to kill. Maybe even in what order. Because this keeps happening, right?"

"Right," says Jadeite.

"Then, the key to breaking out of it can't be making sure you get the right sequence of events just for funsies. It's a specific target. Someone wants you to take something out - I suspect it's a person. I'd start with that, if it were me."

An interesting theory. It's possible Zoisite was led to this conclusion only because he didn't know anything about the memories. But telling Zoisite about the memories was too risky.

-

So Jadeite goes intending to kill Mars and Jupiter, before the cat can get any ideas about awakening them. Haste is the only reason Mars goes down easy. And honestly, Jadeite expects Jupiter to be exactly the same.

But she's not.

Makoto Kino lives in a tiny flat (that Jadeite lets himself into, slinking into the shadows) in a budget-friendly part of town. For a girl in middle school, she keeps a pretty neat living space. She must like to cook because she's got a very well-stocked kitchen - nice cast iron pans, a miniature gas range, specialty tools and utensils.

Lots of books, mostly fiction. Romance, looks like. Some dog-eared. A computer. Three well-cared for plants, and a tiny herb garden. But so little furniture, and there are very few pictures of people on the tables.

It hits Jadeite pretty suddenly: single Makoto living in a single flat. Single Mamoru living in a single flat. Makoto doesn't have any parents. Mamoru doesn't have any parents. Maybe that means the same thing that happened to Mamoru happened to her. The similarities are too great - maybe she knows something about the memories - maybe that's why it didn't work with Chiba, because _Nephrite_ gets memories out of Chiba, but _Jadeite_ gets memories out of someone else!

Shortly thereafter, a cast iron pan also hits Jadeite pretty suddenly. Very painful way to die, 0/10, would not recommend.

-

17.

Okay, so that didn't go so well.

This time, Jadeite lets Flau screw up the radio station plot. Then he returns later the next day and makes a beeline for Makoto Kino's place. And instead of breaking in, he does a truly weird thing: knocks on the door during ordinary daylight hours. What has he become!?

It's cool. He'll be cool! He'll just ask himself the question, _what would Nephrite do,_ and take it from there. Like how Nephrite was with Chiba. (Well, maybe not exactly like that. But, then again, a little flirtation might go a long way, and if it helps get him the answers, he'll do it -)

The door opens wide. "Do I know you?" Makoto asks.

"Y- uh," says Jadeite.

Super eloquent.

Makoto waits, tapping a foot impatiently, and it's now that Jadeite realises she's in an apron, slightly floured on the places where she must have rubbed her hands clean. Her hair is pulled up high to be out of her face, but there's a dusting of flour high on her forehead where she must have wiped her head with the back of her hand. The sleeves of a poufy sweater are rolled up. Jadeite also didn't realise how tall she was, because instead of looking down at her, he looks directly into her bright green eyes. "God, you're adorable," he blurts.

"E- _excuse_ me?" Makoto says. (But she _is_ flushing! Part-marks?)

"Uh, wow," stammers Jadeite, "that - lemme start that again! Hi, I'm - your new neighbour, Ja-uh, Jay. It's Jae. Just Jae. It's Korean. Uh, I am also Korean, hence the name. I just moved in!"

Lying is the _best_ way to get someone to invite you in and tell you all their secrets about your memories.

Also, it smells like cinnamon and butter. No one in the Dark Kingdom makes cinnamon rolls. They smell _amazing_.

"I didn't hear anybody move in," says Makoto. She's folded her arms across her chest, which has the tendency to push her chest up.

Jadeite is very respectfully looking at her eyes.

"Probably yesterday you were at school or something!" Jadeite says, laughing nervously.

"Yesterday was Sunday."

"Church?" he tries. (His voice cracks halfway through. He would like to die now, please.)

Makoto is immobile. "Non-believer."

This is going _terribly_. How did Nephrite play this so _smooth?!_ Is it just Makoto Kino who happens to see right through him? No, it wasn't too great with Chiba, either.

"Maybe you should just start with the truth," says Makoto drily.

Jadeite throws up his hands. "Oh my god, you do _not_ want the truth," he says. "The truth is that I'm a brainwashed agent of the Dark Kingdom desperately trying to track down my own memories in a plot to figure out what happened to me because that's my best guess at figuring out how to break out of this time loop that I'm in that always starts with my first mission on earth and always ends with me dying. If only I _did_ die! But no, once again, there I am in the goddamn radio station, 'cause Midnight Zero's got a show to make come hell or high water, _I guess!_ "

There is stunned silence.

"Okay, well, I was thinking stalker, so this is - _not_ that," says Makoto. "I don't know if that's an improvement on stalker, though. You get part-marks for creativity."

But behind her there is a low animalistic hiss that Jadeite distinctly recognises.

"Oh, that's just - amazing," snaps Jadeite. "And the talking cat is here, too!"

"What? No," says Makoto. She steps aside to reveal the black cat with a little crescent moon on its forehead. this is -"

"Luna the talking cat," says Jadeite, "who is here to give you super shiny sailor powers because that is what she does, she is _not_ a cat, she is a malicious claw-having hell-demon who finds senshi and makes them way too overpowered for one Dark Kingdom general!" God, maybe Zoisite was right. Figure out who it is who he's got to kill and act fast about it, that's job number one.

Luna, of course, is busy curling around Makoto's ankles and purring. Jadeite cannot believe a cat is a better liar than he is.

Makoto squats down to pet the cat. The talking cat continues to act like a normal cat. One of these lifetimes, Jadeite is going to punt it across the room. "Look, you've clearly got a lot of stuff to figure out," says Makoto. "I know a good therapist, if you wanna talk to somebody?"

Jadeite sighs. "Never mind. This was a waste." He doesn't even bother with pretences or appearances and opens up a portal back to the Kingdom. There's a shocked scream behind him but he hardly hears it, and it's a small kindness he's doing for Makoto to off himself there, where she doesn't have to see.

-

18.

Another restart, another obvious excuse for Flau to skive off the radio plan. Really should get Nephrite on the Midnight Zero plan. Nephrite gets more listeners, anyway. Stupid sexy Nephrite has a voice like chocolate.

Meanwhile, Jadeite returns to kill Makoto Kino in her quaint little flat in her quaint little life. With the cat and Sailor Moon tied up at FM-10, it's over and done with in fifteen minutes, but he hates every minute of it. And anyway, it doesn't automatically fix everything in the next three days that come between the radio plan and the gym plan. Somehow Jadeite knew that, but he's justified in seeing it. He's no closer to figuring out a solution for his problem, but he's sure of one thing, he doesn't want to kill Makoto Kino ever again, if he has to.

Makoto doesn't fight, like Ami. But it's not as quick as with Usagi or Rei. Makoto wakes halfway up, realises it's a lost cause, and attempts to preserve what little strength remains, seeming to bypass shock entirely. She lays there and turns her face to the stars, then quietly slips away. Jadeite is so used to death being a quick yet comical affair (because it never _takes_ for anyone, anymore) that this moment of quiet tragedy strikes him harder. _Now_ he feels like a villain.

Which - he is. Isn't he?

-


	5. Chapter 5

19.

Flau doesn't understand why he needs to abandon the plan but he tells her to keep on doing what she intends, knowing she'll die. It doesn't matter; at the end of every 'life' Flau resurrects, just like Jadeite resurrects. It doesn't feel quite so bad to barter her life.

So he lets her. He abandons her to the radio station plan and the moment Moon appears on the scene, dressed as a radio correspondent, while he's reading the love letters, he vanishes, and abandons Flau to her transient fate. He vanishes and reappears outside a condominium building in the west of the city. Chiba's place.

Assuming Zoisite had a point: who has he got to kill? Who has he already tried to kill? He's killed Moon, Mercury, Mars, and now Jupiter. If it's Venus who's the missing link, he's screwed because he doesn't even know who she is.

He's never killed Mask before.

Well, except for that one time he did it accidentally. But maybe it's different if it's before Beryl has recognised him?

It's worth a shot. If he fails he can always restart, and there's coming to be a sort of reassurance in that.

Jadeite lets himself in through the balcony. Now he really feels like a stalker.

Nice place, actually. He hadn't seen this part of it - Nephrite was the one who'd been invited in. Jadeite has a leisurely snoop around. Chiba has few photo albums. None of them seem to really give clues as to who the man behind the mask is - only who Mamoru Chiba is. Whoever Mamoru Chiba is, he isn't Endymion... and he isn't Tuxedo Mask. And there's no tuxedos in his closet, either. So where the tuxedo comes from, exactly, Jadeite has no clue.

No tuxedos, but in the sock drawer, there is a little box with a set of four stones. One is a pea green, one is a forest green, one is a green with streaks of purplish-magenta, and the last is a pale violet-pink. They're oddly beautiful, but Jadeite has no idea why they are locked away in the sock drawer, why they are so carefully preserved when they're not even set gemstones, just polished rocks.

He runs his finger over one, mystified.

This means something... it hooks into his mind, he can't get away from it. But he can't really explain it, either.

In the end, Jadeite closes the little box and puts it back in Chiba's sock drawer, then goes and boils the water for tea.

By the time tea is ready and Jadeite is waiting for him on the couch, Chiba has come home. Chiba turns the light on with confidence but the door shuts gently, like he knows someone's inside. Two beats later Chiba himself shows up in the living room.

"What are you doing in my flat," says Chiba dangerously - himself, not his tuxedo persona.

"I wanted to talk," says Jadeite. "You have questions. I also have questions."

"Who _are_ you," asks Chiba. "How'd you get in?"

"Those aren't the important questions." Jadeite sighs. "I think I'm supposed to kill you," he admits.

He sits placidly on Chiba's couch with a little teacup in hand and doesn't make any violent movements.

"I see," says Chiba. "Well, I would like not to be killed."

"It's not like it matters," says Jadeite. "At the end of all this, I'll probably die, too. And then come back to that damned radio show and that stupid demon and that stupid Sailor Moon and your stupid tuxedo face."

Chiba, of course, doesn't see it that way, and with a flick of his wrist, he gets out his cane. Jadeite dodges it but barely, spilling tea on Chiba's nice couch. "I'm not going to kill you," Jadeite says, just to clarify.

"You said you had questions," says Chiba.

"Why is it you don't _remember_ anything?" asks Jadeite. "You never remember when it's me. When it's Nephrite, I guess, it's easier, you remembered Zoisite and Kunzite, but with me - it's like, there's nothing there. Was I the least important of your guardians? Is that why?"

His voice has taken on such a plaintive tone. God, he sounds so weak, whining like this.

But Chiba's not making fun of him. "You're Jadeite," he says.

Finally, he remembers. Like a shaft of sun breaking through cloud cover, Jadeite's whole mood lifts. "You _do_ remember," he says softly.

Chiba shakes his head. "I have these four stones," he says. "I had 'em tested. One's kunzite, one's zoisite, one's nephrite. The last is jadeite. Minerals. It's just a process of elimination based on what you just said. Sorry."

The stones in his sock drawer. "That can't be a coincidence," murmurs Jadeite, more to himself than anything else.

"Are you some kind of ... spirit?" Chiba asks.

Jadeite almost has to laugh. "I don't think so," he says. "You don't want me to be. I'm not a very good spirit."

"Yeah, well. The priestess up at Hikawa says sometimes spirits aren't."

That's not justification to get close. But Jadeite uses it as one, anyway. Chiba, still in his school uniform, doesn't move as Jadeite approaches, even when he does it slowly enough that Chiba could do something about it if he wanted. Inches away, he looks into Chiba's eyes - bright blue, like Ami's - and tries to visualise them as the pools of memory, telepathically begging Chiba to feel something, a scrap, a glimpse, anything.

Chiba's blank.

But Jadeite's not. As he pulls away there's the briefest flicker of a wide open field, golden with a grain he doesn't recognise - skies as clear as Chiba's eyes - cool autumn wind - he's wearing an ill-fitting uniform, he never liked these dress whites, the shoes pinch -

He gasps. He tries to hold on to more, but it's like grabbing hold of water - it's gone.

No! That's all he gets? That's not _fair!_

"What?" asks Chiba, greedy for information. "What was it?"

"Nothing," Jadeite lies. "Nothing, never mind."

-

Jadeite returns to see how Flau made out, and is not surprised to find it was poorly: there's scorch marks all over the top of the FM-10 building. That's his usual cue to admit defeat and return to the Dark Kingdom, with his head hung in shame as though it really matters that Flau's dead at Sailor Moon's hands, but he hasn't really got the stomach for acting at the moment.

He psyches himself up for it by leaning on the railing and drowning in the colour of the sky, trying to recap what he'd seen or felt. The stars are out tonight, and they make a pretty sight that ultimately means nothing to him. Wonder what Nephrite'd say about them. After all, _the stars know everything_.

Footsteps approach. "Was wondering when you'd get here," Jadeite murmurs. Nephrite's like three timelines too late!

"No, I don't believe you were expecting me," says Kunzite.

Jadeite straightens; Kunzite lifts a hand to quell any formality. (After all these lifetimes, Jadeite wasn't planning on standing at attention. But let's let Kunzite think that.) "You took too long to return," Kunzite explains. "Queen Beryl dispatched me to come find you. Why haven't you returned?"

"Is that an answer for you or an answer for Queen Beryl that you're seeking?" asks Jadeite.

"For our queen, naturally," says Kunzite, so easily and readily that it's clearly practiced. Kunzite would probably be really good at this whole death-loop thing.

Kunzite is clearly expecting an excuse, but Jadeite gives him the whole sob story, the same one he'd given Zoisite. Again, he skips the memories. He wants to talk about the memories more than he even did with Zoisite, but Kunzite is too faithful or too tactical or both and _will_ turn him in.

He hesitates about it anyway, and Kunzite perks up, noticing. Jadeite shakes his head, and they move on, acting naturally. Jadeite, too, pays close attention to Kunzite's face as he talks about the timelines that involve Kunzite, and the ones that involve Endymion and the brainwashing.

There's... there's almost something there. A shadow passing over his face. Jadeite is almost certain, but not completely.

So, they're at an impasse. Jadeite wants to talk about something, and Kunzite knows it, but he won't; Kunzite has something to talk about, and Jadeite knows it, but he won't.

Then Kunzite begins. "The truth is..."

"Yes?" says Jadeite, perking up.

"The truth is, I've been watching you since you abandoned Flau to Sailor Moon," he finishes.

Jadeite is quiet. So - what's that mean? That he saw him go to Chiba's place instead, that he followed him there, that he listened in? How would he have known that Jadeite left Flau alone for the FM-10 plan anyway? Does that mean that every time Jadeite leaves Flau to work the plan alone, Kunzite's watching? Or has Kunzite been watching him all along?

"I see," says Jadeite.

"Well?" says Kunzite, expectant.

"Well what?"

"Why did you abandon your duty to meet with a strange man?"

It sounds so lewd when Kunzite puts it that way. "He has ... a connection," says Jadeite, trying for vague, unsure what Kunzite overheard and eavesdropped, if he did. "He's mixed into this whole thing, I don't know how."

"What whole thing," asks Kunzite.

"You tell me," snaps Jadeite, suddenly churlish. "You're the one who has his fingers in all the pies." He's tired of spilling and Kunzite being a void of secrets. Why can't Kunzite ever share?

Kunzite glowers, and vanishes. Whatever, thinks Jadeite, let him leave.

He sits a little while longer and then makes to return as well, but before he does, he takes a quick trip to Chiba's place - only to find Chiba and Kunzite locked in combat. Chiba, unsurprisingly, is losing. Kunzite's caught him off-guard, he couldn't even transform into the shiny tuxedo man, and with Sailor Moon still alive, Chiba doesn't even have the odd benefit of the talking cat. (The one time it'd actually be useful to have her here!)

"What are you _doing_ ," cries Jadeite.

"Getting answers," says Kunzite. "I figured you'd be too weak to do it." His hands are around Chiba's throat, pulling, squeezing. It's a funny way of expecting Chiba to talk when Kunzite isn't even letting him breathe.

Chiba croaks something, and gasps a rattling breath. " _Weak_ ," snarls Kunzite. "Weak and undeserving of the glory of the Dark Kingdom." He makes some sort of quick movement, thrashing him, and Chiba's neck goes wrong, bending in an unnatural way. Kunzite lets him go, and he crumples to the ground in a heap, unmoving.

"What did you do that for?" says Jadeite.

"You were right," says Kunzite. "He has answers. I don't know how, but he does. But you have to beat them out of him. I don't know that it's worth it." Something strikes him. "Tell me, Jadeite," he says, liquid smooth, as though he hasn't just killed a man in cold blood, "were you being truthful earlier? About the death loops?"

He takes a menacing step forward. Jadeite takes one back.

"Just a stupid story," Jadeite lies. He remembers the hatred in Kunzite's eyes as he said it: _weak and undeserving of the Dark Kingdom._ He thought Kunzite had meant Chiba; with every step he thinks maybe he meant Jadeite himself. Why else would Kunzite help himself to a task like Chiba that was clearly in Jadeite's wheelhouse, unless he thought Jadeite wasn't able to see it through?

"Hm," says Kunzite. "I don't think so."

In a flash he attacks, advancing on Jadeite lightning fast, and grabs him by the shirt. The force has them backed onto the balcony, and Kunzite's unbalancing weight throws them both over it.

As they're falling, Kunzite has the barest space to say: "Inches from death - he told me we were his guardians, that there was a war, he mentioned a golden crystal - but that all can't be true, can it?" He throttles Jadeite in his grip like he throttled Chiba. " _Can it?_ "

But they hit the ground before Jadeite can reply.

-

20.

So... that was weird. Jadeite's left puzzling for hours after he finds himself, yet again, at this awful radio station with awful Flau.

Kunzite must've known that, if Jadeite would reboot as he said he would, he had seconds to tell Jadeite what he'd discovered. About being generals, Jadeite knows already; the war, he knows. The golden crystal - now, that's new.

Why wouldn't Kunzite just take him aside and tell him simply? Why the need to do it furtively, at the edge of life?

He knows he's being watched, thinks Jadeite. He would have known - perhaps because he saw what happened to Zoisite. Or perhaps because Beryl - or Metallia - or both of them have too great a hold on Kunzite himself. He _is_ the top-ranked of the four of them. Then, even if it's all an act and Kunzite remembers more than he lets on, he will never be able to get that info to Jadeite anyway.

It's the worst, because Jadeite isn't even sure if he's lost an asset.

It's weird that Kunzite believed him enough to act on that information. The death loop thing sounds so crazy Jadeite's not sure he'd believe it, if he weren't actively living it. That's a level of trust that Kunzite must have in him.

But then, why kill Chiba at all? Kunzite doesn't normally act so rashly. He must have realised something about Chiba... maybe that was the right thing to do all along. Maybe it was a test. A test for Beryl? Seems unlikely, since she loves the guy. But it does seem to make sense, everything tied up with her and Kunzite being her closest general - Kunzite goes to places in the Dark Kingdom where no one else is allowed, where Metallia lurks. Kunzite knows something he's not letting on, given the look he gave Jadeite.

So Jadeite returns to Chiba's place while Flau fucks up the radio station plot, yet again. There's no golden crystal in the little box in the sock drawer. (He's tempted to take the stones, but leaves them.) There's no golden crystal or anything like it in the entire apartment.

Well. If Chiba is his main goal, and he needs Chiba for memories, then he needs to draw out a plan with energy such that it attracts Chiba.

Thetis' cruise ship plan for couples does well enough for that. She's convinced the sailors won't show up because it's geared towards older couples, but Jadeite remembers all too well how they smuggle their way aboard anyway. True to form all three sailor senshi make an appearance, which means so does Chiba, as Tuxedo Mask. Thetis' water attacks do well against Mars' fire attacks, but that only means Mars strikes back harder, and nearly singes Tuxedo Mask in the process.

"Get over here," Jadeite says, yanking him by the hand. He tells himself his ire is because Tuxedo Mask can't give Jadeite memories if he's on fire! But the real reason is that frantic feel of getting someone you care for out of harm's way.

"Hey!" Tuxedo Mask yelps. All the senshi hear it, and Sailor Moon reaches for her stupid discus tiara.

Time to leave. Jadeite opens a portal and ducks him _and_ Tuxedo Mask through it. This abandons Thetis to her fate, but whatever, she'll die anyway.

They reappear outside his apartment building.

Tuxedo Mask is irate. "Why did you -"

Jadeite slaps a hand over his mouth, and Mask shuts up for a second. "Do you remember anything, anything at all?" begs Jadeite.

Mask shakes his head, wide-eyed.

"Come on!" Jadeite rattles Mask's frame like he can shake it out of him, like Kunzite did. What was it Nephrite had said exactly? He'd held Mask close, he'd stared into his eyes. Jadeite tries the same, and gets even closer to Mask - as though they can't get close enough - and begs him. "Please," he says, "remember." He adds in a stroke of the backs of his fingers down Mask's cheek, but it only serves to freak him out.

Mask is shaking his head again. "Buddy, I don't know who you are," he says, "but you have the _wrong guy_."

It's no use. Nephrite had some knack about him, Kunzite had some knack about him. Jadeite's failed in capturing that.

Well, process of elimination. Try Zoisite's tactic: assume that the death means something, and take him out yourself.

Jadeite steps back and sighs. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry for this."

Then he grabs Mask by the arm and whips him around, until he's back to Jadeite's chest with Jadeite's arms around his neck. Jadeite gets a firm grip on Mask's chin and _tugs_ , and there's a nasty snapping sound.

Tuxedo Mask is suddenly deadweight in his arms. And something in Jadeite breaks with how wrong it all is...

Like he's done all of this before and he's learned nothing.

But he's never done this with Mask! With the senshi, yes. And it felt wrong, but it also hadn't, it had felt like his _job_.

This feels like - this feels _so_ wrong. This feels like the flow of blood in his veins has redirected, like gravity is perpendicular to normal. This feels _unnatural_.

Zoisite's got it all wrong, it can't have to do with deaths. They've only started feeling worse and worse. And he doesn't even get any memories out of it. There's no justification - the ends are paltry, and the means are increasingly insurmountable.

"I'll do better next time," he murmurs to himself. He lets Mask go - Mask falls to the ground in a heap. Beyond his broken body is Mask's cane, which Jadeite picks up to inspect closely. There's the faintest slit where it separates. He grabs hold of the two sides and pulls to reveal the blade.

Then he presses the point of it to his chest and pushes, falling on another man's sword.

That's really the only part of it that feels at all right.

-

21.

Kunzite had the most luck the most recently, so Jadeite returns to him. (After telling Flau to finish the plot on her own, and fully expecting her to die.)

He finds out the hard way that it's very difficult to establish rapport with Kunzite in some manner that doesn't provoke Kunzite's suspicion in a dangerous, deadly way.

-

22.

Or, for that matter, in some manner that doesn't raise Zoisite's hackles. In an equally dangerous and deadly way.

-

25\. 

Jadeite eventually gives up after three more deaths. (Zoisite is nothing if not creative!)

It's strange, he thinks. Getting close to Kunzite sparks Zoisite's rage and cruelty, but getting close to Zoisite never gets a damn blip from Kunzite. Jadeite's not sure if that means something good or bad. Maybe it's as tragic as it sounds: Kunzite just doesn't care about Zoisite the way Zoisite cares for Kunzite.

Or maybe Kunzite is emotionally cold. Well, no lie there.

Or maybe Kunzite - and this is a real stretch - _trusts_ Zoisite.

But why would he? Jadeite thinks about it, and also thinks about the time that he told Kunzite everything about the death loops, as much as he could without giving himself up too much. Why'd Kunzite let him talk that long about such a crazy topic, anyway?

It's possible that Kunzite just likes having people's secrets and confidences. Whether he returns them is a whole nother thing. But it's an easy way to work oneself into his good books: by being open with him, no matter how insane your story sounds, and letting him have that confidence and trust. Rolling over to expose your belly to him, as it were. And maybe it's because Kunzite likes having something over you, maybe it's leverage, maybe it's just as simple as he likes to be needed and likes having his opinion and thoughts requested.

Maybe, subconsciously, it's an easy way to create something like a pact between them. When pacts - as Endymion says - aren't made in the Dark Kingdom, but broken.

Jadeite develops easy manipulation rules for the other generals: confide in Kunzite, get Nephrite talking about memories (but ease into it), distract Zoisite by letting him indulge his cruelty.

-

32.

It takes a few goes.

-

42.

(A thought strikes him. Probably, if it's so easy to manipulate the other generals, the senshi can also be hooked. Maybe he doesn't need to kill anybody at all, just figure out all their tells and exploits.)

-  
49.

He finally makes it work by first courting Zoisite and Nephrite. He has to finish the radio plot with Flau, then debrief with Nephrite in the Dark Kingdom, and act like Earth has 'changed' him. Makes him think about things more deeply, reflect a little more. To keep hanging out with Nephrite he has to let slip things here and there, about the memories, a lie here, a fib there, about how Earth's been awakening things in him and he's not sure what to do, but knows he can't go to anyone else.

Then, when he's cushy-close with Nephrite, Zoisite takes note of an obvious threat (Zoisite prefers it when Jadeite and Nephrite are at odds with one another, and don't think that's escaped Jadeite's analysis, either - Zoisite is okay with two on one and one, but two on two is evenly-matched, and he's never liked fair odds), and Zoisite approaches him first.

This works best if Zoisite's convinced that he and Nephrite are sleeping together. 

Actually, it works even better if he and Nephrite are _actually_ sleeping together. But that brings in its own set of issues, such as the fact that it feels rotten to lie to Nephrite already, but way worse if they're boning on a regular basis! And Jadeite _becomes_ worse at lying to him, too; more than once Nephrite susses him out. Guess this is what happens when you let people in. 

(Aren't villains supposed to be capable of casual cruelty like sociopathic lying? Hell, maybe Earth _has_ changed him, and Kunzite's right - he's weak and undeserving.)

At any rate, Zoisite seeing him with Nephrite seems to really hammer the message home that Jadeite isn't looking to steal Kunzite out from under him, so Zoisite and Jadeite can form a closeness. Well, sort of. What closeness passes for, for Zoisite. Zoisite's slow to trust, so they don't have much of a friendship beyond nodding acquaintances. But that's the closest he's been with Zoisite in decades.

Somehow, Jadeite thinks, it all makes a sad sense. Most of this isn't even Zoisite's fault. He's just - reacting to a certain set of stimuli at this point.

He puts both Zoisite and Nephrite out in the field on Earth, gathering energy. Each have their own way of going about it, Zoisite by targeting small groups by infiltrating them, Nephrite by targeting one specific individual who his stars have assured is near the peak of their energy, ready for reaping. Both methods take time, so that gives Jadeite the opportunity to approach Kunzite back in the Dark Kingdom.

As before, as he'd done with Zoisite and Nephrite in previous lives, Jadeite tells Kunzite the whole crazy story and confesses everything, leaving out the memories. Kunzite clearly thinks he's crazy but part of that is because Kunzite admits he doesn't know of another kind of magic that would let this happen, but he's clever enough to imagine one. Beryl's magic, for example, would work.

"But Beryl hasn't done this to you," reasons Kunzite. He hits on something, and continues in a much lower voice. "Or... has she?"

"Don't tell her," mutters Jadeite. "Just - let this stay between us for now."

There. Let's see if Kunzite will pass the message along to his keeper, or if Kunzite will keep his confidence.

Kunzite remains suspicious, so Jadeite has to keep talking. "She doesn't get it," he argues. "She either kills me because she thinks I've gone mad, or she tries to ... recreate me, as it were, because she thinks something of Metallia's sacred magic has worn off." Jadeite's careful not to use the brainwashing term. That feels like something that will spark Kunzite's flight. No, he has to ease into it, like Nephrite and memories.

"How many times is this?" asks Kunzite.

"I've lost count," says Jadeite. "It just keeps happening. For you, it was yesterday. For me, yesterday - _true_ yesterday - feels like years ago. That's why I don't seem the same."

"No," says Kunzite slowly, his eyes narrowed, "you seem... familiar."

"But not in a Jadeite way," Jadeite supplies.

"No," says Kunzite. "In a _very_ Jadeite way."

Huh. Maybe it's not Chiba who has the secrets of pre-them, it's Kunzite. Maybe it's Chiba _and_ Kunzite.

"What do you remember," says Jadeite, "of a golden crystal?"

Kunzite shakes his head. Nothing.

"Of generals?"

Kunzite frowns.

"Of Endymion?"

Here, Kunzite takes a step back. Jadeite's on alert, ready to flee if he has to, kill himself to restart this whole process all over again, but Kunzite lifts a hand and Jadeite stills.

"There was one thing," Kunzite says. He's whispering now, and Jadeite has to be very quiet to hear him at all. "Something... rotten. The smell of organ meat. Decay, blood. A vivid red haze."

"A choking fog," says Jadeite.

Like that time Jadeite nearly got himself brainwashed again by Beryl, and nearly lost everything he'd learnt about the senshi.

Interesting. _Very_ interesting. Kunzite's focus is hypnotised, almost, like something else inside him is making him overcome a barrier by talking, and his programming can't hold it back. This is the part of Kunzite that might remember being Endymion's general, but it looks like it's locked away. And that's Beryl's doing.

"You remember," says Jadeite. "Don't you? You remember a white coffin and bars of strong energy and a force keeping you there, digging into you. Metallia's power, wiping it all away -"

"Stop," says Kunzite.

Jadeite holds up his hands. He's pushed too far. "I get it," he says. "If you know anything more, if you want to talk more -"

"I _don't_ ," says Kunzite.

"Well, you know where to find me," says Jadeite. "Sorry," he adds sheepishly, because Kunzite is bowed with the force of the memories and looks greyer than he usually does.

Jadeite shows himself out.

-

Kunzite _does_ know where to find him, as it happens. He knows so well in fact that he gives that information freely to Zoisite, who passes it along to a specialised trio of plant-based demons.

One of them has vines growing from her arms and she's fast with them, binding Jadeite at the shoulders and waist to bend him back before he can get his hands free. Another riddles his torso through with vines, impaling him multiple times, and she leaves them in there. The last adds insult to injury, using the thorned vines she makes to steal whatever energy she can from him, so that he can't even muster the energy to remove the vines and bleed out quicker. They don't even stick around to keep him company, and he dies alone.

Though it was worth it - he's got what he needed out of Kunzite - it's a very long, very painful end.

-


	6. Chapter 6

50.

Jadeite needs time to think, so he may as well remain under the radar by attending the plan with Flau in the meantime.

This time, he reads the Midnight Zero letters, exactly as normal, gearing himself up for the moment where Sailor Moon, disguised, comes in and disrupts him. He'll have to fight her, he'll have to make it look good.

In his absent-mindedness he picks up a letter. Maybe he saw it forever ago and thought nothing of it, maybe it's an accident and he's never read it. But whatever the case, he pauses halfway through his reading, leaving dead air on the radio as he reads.

The answer's been right under his nose all along. This was why he was sent here. To this one!

_Dear Midnight Zero,_

_I've fallen hopelessly in love with another girl. She, like me, is beautiful with long legs and large bosoms and perfect skin and -_ Jadeite fast-forwards, flipping the page. _...but I have a boyfriend. The problem is that last month I went to the Hikawa Shrine where they do past lives and reincarnation readings, which are very affordable. They're always accurate and bonus, you can get a two-for-one deal with a palm reading on Saturday mornings! They told me very nice things and their charms for luck are also affordable as they are aesthetically pleasing. Only 1500 yen, or three for 4000! Get them while supplies last!_

_Anyway, my past lives meditation (which was very relaxing, would recommend) showed that I and this girl had been married, centuries ago! How wonderful! But how can I open our relationship to include my former wife in my new life? As I wrote previously, both of us are very beautiful women, so I don't think my boyfriend will have an issue with it._

Sailor Moon has burst in already and is across from him. "I won't let you carry on as you do with girls' love letters! It's cruel of you to steal their energy -"

"Hey, do you know how to get to Hikawa Shrine from here?" asks Jadeite.

This has Sailor Moon stunned. "What... what does that have to do with anything?" she asks.

He's already considering this timeline a loss. Might as well have fun. He relaxes in Midnight Zero's chair - oh, and the mic is still on and they're live. "Look, I'm happy to admit I don't know humans all that well, but I'm pretty sure this -" he waves the letter in Sailor Moon's face - "is a fake letter written a) by a man and b) by someone who's trying to advertise the services of Hikawa Shrine. Pretty flimsy. Anyway, you ever been?"

"Are... are you _asking me out?_ " Sailor Moon looks so confused.

And hadn't Chiba also said something about the shrine? The priestess from Hikawa.

That shrine's name is familiar... he stumbles on it after a moment's thought. Oh, it's Rei Hino. She's the priestess!

"It can't be so easy," he murmurs to himself. "But, maybe it can. She's Sailor Mars, too, it all fits!" And he starts to laugh, which doesn't endear him to Sailor Moon, who flushes red with anger.

Neither is Flau too happy that her great and wondrous plan isn't going forward. "Yeah, I don't think you're his _type_ , girlie," she says, folding her arms across her chest. "Earth to Jadeite, can you back me up, here?"

"Yeah, I'm cheering you on," says Jadeite, absently. "Anyway, when's the next bus to this shrine?"

But Sailor Moon isn't really buying it either. "You're both from the Dark Kingdom!" she says. She transforms in a brilliant flash of light to reveal herself.

Flau gasps, for some reason shocked. (Well, she hasn't had to repeat this mission a billion times.) Jadeite, meanwhile, points to his own head, adding, "Cool beans. Listen, aim the discus right here, 'kay?"

Death by discus is so much _less_ painful than dying by cast iron pan.

-

51.

This time, he takes the letter, lets Flau die and the mission fail, and returns to the Dark Kingdom. "I'll need some time off to prepare for my next plan," says Jadeite, in consultation with Beryl.

"Very well," says Beryl, "but next time, mind that you bring me some actual energy or -"

"Or you'll send Kunzite after me," says Jadeite, "yeah, I know." He's starting to care less and less. If it has to do with the senshi, then there's nothing he really needs from the Dark Kingdom, nothing Beryl can provide.

Beryl narrows her eyes.

"That's what you were going to say, wasn't it? Because he's been watching me?"

"Ye-es," says Beryl slowly. She murmurs, "I don't remember giving you telepathy."

"I'm amazing like that," says Jadeite.

But this gives him the day off, anyway. It's not the first time he's been to the shrine. He's even _worked_ here before, oddly enough. Seems forever ago.

As he approaches, he realises he hasn't actually thought about what he's going to do after he's broken himself out of these loops. He's been looking for a solution to make this stop because... that's probably the right thing to do. Right?

But after? Go back to serving Beryl? That was probably his initial plan, but now, given everything he knows?

Maybe he can go to Chiba. Chiba needs the Silver Crystal to retrieve his memories, maybe it'll lead him to the golden one. Who knows, but he could probably use some backup, as it looks like he's the backup for the senshi but nobody's his backup. And if Jadeite was Endymion's guardian, forever ago, that seems like he's a natural leader. At any rate, he has the opportunity for more memories.

He's got a stone with my name on it in his sock drawer, thinks Jadeite. It kinda fits.

But there's three other problems with that plan. If he -

He stops for a minute and has to take a few grounding breaths before he can continue.

If he ...

 _Say it,_ he thinks.

If he _defects_.

Jadeite looks around. Well, nobody's struck him down yet.

But Kunzite would, if he knew. Or Zoisite. It seems likely. Jadeite could possibly encourage Nephrite his way, but that's two on two and it's not good enough to ensure their continued safety.

These death loops may be annoying, but it's useful to use them as a simulation, of sorts. Figure out what works, what doesn't work. How it could all go wrong. How it could all go right.

 _If he defects_... he needs to pick up Nephrite, at the very least, and then - and then what? Try and see if he can swing Kunzite and Zoisite's defection too? That seems so implausible! It's taken Jadeite how many deaths just to get to this point?

But they were _all four of them_ Endymion's guardians. There's probably no use in saying 'two out of four ain't bad' and calling it a day, right?

"Buddy, you gonna buy something, or you gonna sit there and stare at the trees all day long?" yells a particularly sharp voice.

Jadeite looks up. Rei Hino is there, attending to some chores, and he's kind of in her way.

He presents her with the letter. "What is this," she says, her face mildly disgusted.

"You the one who wrote this letter?"

"Of course not," Rei replies. She rolls her eyes. "No, this looks like my grandfather's writing. Sorry. He's got kind of a weird sense of humour. Did he send you this? Is he bugging you?"

"Not really," says Jadeite. "I mean, yeah, this letter is ridiculous. But that's obvious. I wanted to ask about the past lives meditation."

"Well, it's not two for one," she snaps, "I can tell you that much, I'm charging for both. You think this is a charity? My family has to eat -"

"Whoa, it's fine," he says, cutting her off at the pass, "I can pay. I don't really care about palm reading or luck charms. I just want to know about past lives." He sighs. "Specifically, mine..."

Might as well be honest. If this all goes south he can simply take it as a data point, kill himself, and try again.

"Look," Jadeite says. "I can't remember half my life."

"Yeah," says Rei, "there's therapy for that."

"And I think some of it has to do with a past life."

This has her giving the idea a once-over, at least. "So you believe in reincarnation," she says.

"Yeah. I mean, I think I kinda have to." Jadeite doesn't elaborate.

Rei looks him up and down. Less in a sexy way, which - ouch, his pride, and more in a calculating, evaluating way. "Well, I'm not gonna lie," she says, "you kinda creep me out. And you definitely give me a spirit of darkness kind of vibe."

He _has_ killed her a number of times. "Ehh, that's fair," says Jadeite.

"Furthermore, I can't claim that what we do here will completely purify you. It might take a few sessions."

"Which I'm sure _you_ don't mind, because you'll get to charge for each one."

"Hey," says Rei. "A girl's gotta eat."

But that's not a no, so he follows her into the shrine.

And he knows he's been here before, but this feels... different. It still feels like there's a presence here, and it's making itself known, but this time he doesn't feel like the presence is _actively_ trying to push him out. That's a plus, at least.

"I don't think the spirit really wants you here," says Rei.

"Yeah," says Jadeite. "That's fair."

She makes him sit down in front of a large firepit. She builds the fire first, taking her time, then she walks over to the soundsystem (which is at least ten years out of date) and pushes a button. A haunting non-melody starts to play, a high flute of some sort and some kind of drum. Rei, meanwhile, picks up a stick covered in bells, draping the long ribbon over her other arm, and starts whirling around and waving it around in time to the music.

"Is... this supposed to make me remember things?" says Jadeite. "'Cause it's actually really distracting."

She bonks him on the head the next time the drum beats and she's passing by. "Hey!" he says.

"Focus on the flame!" Rei says. "And try and look like you're praying."

If Jadeite's ever prayed in his life, it's part of the life that he doesn't remember, but he makes an effort at looking penitent anyway. And maybe there's some truth to this nonsense, as disbelieving as he might be, because it feels like two minutes that Rei has made him sit there and stare at flames. But she helpfully informs him it's actually been twenty and she's sick and tired of ringing the goddamn bells and spinning around.

"Nothing?" she asks.

Jadeite shakes his head.

"Alright, let's try the other method," she says.

She gives him rice wine in a little cup and makes him take only a sip. He does - it's very sour. He much prefers Nephrite's whiskey. The rest she makes him pour in the fire. Waste of wine, but whatever, he's not the expert here.

"Huh," says Rei. "Never done that before."

"What?"

"Well, the fire went red."

Jadeite laughs, derisively. "I don't know how to tell you this but the fire is literally always red," he says.

"Dummy," she says, "I mean it went, like, _cherry_ red. _Non_ -fire red, _weird_ red." She repours his wine cup. "Try it again. First one symbolises the heavens. So it should've worked."

Jadeite sips. The rice wine is no less pleasant the second time around. The rest he pours into the fire, watching a bit more carefully.

"Red again," murmurs Rei.

"Think I actually caught it that time," says Jadeite. "It's like a burgundy?"

"Yeah," says Rei. "'Kay, one more. This one's for people. Try thinking about the person you were."

He sips - nope, still gross - then dumps. This time the fire goes red... and stays red.

Jadeite scoots back from the flames. "Shouldn't be doing that," he says. "Should it?"

"Remember anything?" asks Rei.

He shakes his head. Nothing yet.

Rei lifts her arms above her head, slowly, with one hand shaking the stick of bells, and the other clutching the ribbon, and as she does the sound grows louder, deafening, and the flames reach higher, and higher, until they're at the ceiling. "Uh," says Jadeite. "You're, uh..." But Rei keeps doing it. It's unnatural and can't be explained. "Is - is this supposed to happen?" he asks.

"Don't know," says Rei. "Are you getting something out of it? Any memories, past lives? Anything?"

With his pulse racing, Jadeite looks in the centre of the flames. And though he's so eager to have those memories back, there's a sort of horror to the anticipation, now, that he can't explain. Like he's on the outside, looking in, peering past a window to see something horrible unfold inside. The red has become an almost violent purple. A throbbing heart of it in the centre... the smell of organ meat... decay ... _rot_.

They should stop this - this is dangerous.

"Metallia," Jadeite whispers. "She's here."

But calling her name doesn't bring her forth. She's - trapped. Part of Jadeite brightens. The other part shrinks back, cringing. He's not sure which part is winning.

That must be why they need the energy for her! And fire - fire is energy, surely. That's why this process acts as a conduit. It all makes sense, in some kind of weird ritualistic logic.

That doesn't explain why he's inching closer to the fire.

"Hey," says Rei, "watch out - sparks, y'know?"

"Yes," says Jadeite, fully entranced. He reaches his hand out to touch the flames. "I know."

And it's like it's not even him who does it, as he inches forward on his hands and knees, and shuffles into the centre of the flame.

Rei screams. Red all around him. Jadeite inhales it, he exhales it. It burns his lungs and his eyes and he can smell the singed hair. And somewhere beyond his awareness there is Rei, shocked and appalled and running out of the room for water because this is not supposed to happen -

But in a weird way, it is. This is exactly what's supposed to happen.

Zoisite was right, all along. Jadeite had to figure out who to kill. Himself, yet not himself. The part of Metallia that was inside him.

It screeches, wails, shrieks as it leaves him, tearing itself apart as his flesh melts, whirling away like it's burned by the sacredness of the fire, just as Jadeite's own body is burned by any ordinary hot temperature plasma.

And in that last ten seconds that remains him before he succumbs, Jadeite feels free for the first time - ever.

Truly free.

He closes his eyes.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't know where else to put this picture, lol. it's from before the fic was written. have it! --sb 


	7. Chapter 7

52.

Jadeite wakes up in front of the radio station.

He looks down at his hands. Whole, unburnt! He can still _feel_ the sensation of it, tingling on his skin, the weird feeling of Metallia leaving him with every exhaled breath, pouring out of him.

He doesn't really feel any different, but that had to have done something. Surely? It felt meaningful, it felt right. It's possible that this is the final time loop and that after this he's _done_. 

Done!

How glorious that'll be to never have to see this timeline again, to never have to see this radio station or Flau again!

Then... he also needs to consider whether he's actually going back to the Dark Kingdom at all.

"Hey," says Flau. "Earth to Jadeite. Are you coming in or what?"

"Sure, yeah," says Jadeite. "Right behind you."

Jadeite needs to buy that time to figure out if, and how, he's going to defect. He's pretty sure he wants to be on whatever side Mamoru is on, so ... that's a yes to defection. The only question is how.

He allows the plan with Flau to more or less carry on as normal (i.e., Flau dies and Sailor Moon gets away because Tuxedo Mask saves her at the last second) so that Jadeite can abscond with just enough energy to please Beryl. Thus Beryl believes Jadeite's still onboard and he's simply run into a snag, and that snag has a name and that name is Sailor Moon. As long as he can keep her thinking that he's still on the Dark Kingdom's side, he should be good.

Meanwhile, Jadeite spirits himself back to Earth, trying to figure out how he might shake a potential Kunzite tail. He'll never know whether Kunzite is tracking him - Kunzite is too good at his job - so he has to assume he's being followed at all times. He uses his powers (it's gratifying to know that despite Metallia's disappearance, they still exist) to unlock and steal a car, a sensible black sedan that absolutely nobody will notice. Then he drives it - he's never learned but it must be in some part of his memory, as he does it more or less safely - to Mamoru's apartment building and finds Mamoru walking towards it about a block away.

He pulls over and rolls down the window. "If you want answers to the questions you have, get in," Jadeite says.

"Stranger danger much?" says Mamoru. "I don't have any questions -"

Jadeite leans over to open the passenger side. "You don't remember anything before you were six. Your parents were in a car accident. Or a sailing accident. Or a plane accident. Or a freak casino slots machine accident. All of the paramedics have conflicting stories because they actually saw something different. I know, because -" and as Jadeite snaps his fingers, a visualisation of a flame briefly appears at his fingertips - "I'm pretty sure I can guess how they made that particular magic trick happen. Anyway, either you get in, or I drive on, but we can't talk like this in the street. I'm pretty sure I'm being followed." Jadeite thinks. "Actually, he'll probably follow you too now. Then you'll really know the meaning of stranger danger."

Mamoru frowns. "Wow, thanks for giving me a choice."

But he does get in.

Since his magic is working anyway, Jadeite puts a shield up around the car. There's a lot of gas left in the car before it hits empty, so Jadeite weaves them in and out of a more densely trafficked neighbourhood. If Kunzite _is_ tracking him, he can't use his abilities to see in the car, he'll have to petition Beryl for her sight. And that'll take time, because Kunzite will need to convince Beryl that there is a reason to use it.

They talk for hours. Jadeite confesses everything he's learnt so far, and this time, he leaves nothing out. Time loops, memories, previous incarnations of Mamoru, previous incarnations of Jadeite, the possible function of Metallia, the varying senshi, the remaining generals, their time as his guardians, Endymion - all of it. It takes awhile.

Also, it's enjoyable.

Mamoru is easy to talk to and kind, and Jadeite warms to him readily. _There are no friends in the Dark Kingdom_ , he remembers the dark brainwashed Endymion telling him. But this Endymion - Mamoru - is very happy to have a friend. And actually, so is Jadeite.

If only Jadeite could take him along through the time loops. Because Jadeite dies and he'll have to do this all over again.

Would that really be so bad? Jadeite supposes he might at some point get sick of it, but at this point even that seems unrealistic. Who could get sick of this? Mamoru trusts him within ten minutes and every time Jadeite takes his eyes off the road to look over at him he's beaming with this brilliant smile that has Jadeite's spirits lifted and heart beating. With happiness. Probably!

Jadeite must be on the right track, he wouldn't be feeling like this otherwise.

"Together, then," says Mamoru. "We'll find the Silver Crystal, and we'll _both_ get our memories." He smiles to himself, and Jadeite catches it only out of the periphery of his vision. "Honestly, it's just nice not to be alone anymore."

Jadeite's cheeks are warm. "Yeah," he says softly.

-

Mamoru's the one who comes up with the brilliant idea to get Kunzite off his tail. "Simple," he says, "I'll just grab a blond wig and dress up like you." Which is hilarious and... and actually could work.

Which means there are two Jadeites in lavender sunglasses and purple-and-lime tracksuits in the gym plot.

"I can't tell if this thing is awful or wonderful," says Mamoru.

"Right?" says Jadeite.

They give each other twin looks in their lavender glasses and go to town.

The gym plan carries on as normal (i.e., three bodybuilder demons die and Sailor Moon gets away because Tuxedo Mask saves her at the last second, only this time Tuxedo Mask is dressed as Jadeite). Kunzite makes an appearance in the shadows only peripherally, because Jadeite's hackles are raised in the usual way they are when someone's watching him just a little too closely, but that feeling fades in and out throughout the day. Kunzite isn't able to track both Jadeites.

Mamoru meets him later at an arcade, which is busy and loud and kind of perfect for covert ops, when Jadeite thinks about it.

In fact it's so perfect that Jadeite can't even be surprised when he looks over from their parfaits (which actually? are delicious, maybe this Earth thing has a few good ideas) to find a black cat slinking in and out of the many legs. As Jadeite watches, it looks back - glares at him - and turns to a different machine. Jadeite loses sight of it after that.

But that was definitely Luna, that damn cat demon that keeps on finding the senshi.

Jadeite's incognito at the moment, wearing one of Mamoru's jackets and one of Mamoru's awful ugly hats, but he can't be sure the cat didn't recognise him. And if it did, and it knows about Mamoru, then it might have gotten the impression that Tuxedo Mask is working with the Dark Kingdom. That's dangerous, because it calls into question all of Tuxedo Mask's assistance to Sailor Moon, and it makes him look like a liar when he says he needs the Silver Crystal for his memories.

The cat never bothered to hear Jadeite out, it probably wouldn't bother to hear Mamoru, either!

-

So Jadeite tails (hah) the cat the next time he sees it, which is during a plot that is so mundane by now that Jadeite barely pays attention to it. It goes off as normal (some demon dies and Sailor Moon gets away, only this time because Jadeite _and_ Tuxedo Mask save her at the last second), but Jadeite sneaks out afterwards in pursuit of the cat. The cat must know, because it leaves Sailor Moon's side at one point to dart down a narrow alleyway. Jadeite turns into the alley himself and receives a face-full of claw.

"Quit it!" he says, his forearms over his face, swinging out wildly, trying to evade the cat, but it gets its claws dug in deep to draw blood. "Look, I'm - gah - I'm on your side! Can you please _stop!_ "

He reaches out to grab the cat by that fold of skin behind the neck that they always say is supposed to immobilise cats. Further proof that this cat is not a real goddamn cat because it continues batting at him with its razorblade murder paws and Jadeite has to twist away to stop it from ripping open an artery.

"I'm not kidding!" Jadeite says. "I know you think I'm from the Dark Kingdom, and - and I am, I won't lie, but things've changed and I'm not who you think I am."

The cat continues to hiss and act like an ordinary pissed-off cat. Proof that it doesn't trust Jadeite, it's not even talking. "I know Tsukino is Sailor Moon. I could've given that information to my superiors, so they could come by at night and kill her in her sleep -" god knows Jadeite speaks from experience - "but I didn't. That has to count for something! I'm not giving her up."

"But you could," says the cat.

"I could also give up Sailors Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter," says Jadeite, and now the cat stops.

"Those ... they don't exist," says the cat.

"Not yet," says Jadeite. "I know who they are, and I can lead you to them." Just like in previous timelines he's led the Dark Kingdom to them. This feels a little more correct. (That said, it had felt correct back then, too.)

"Lead me," commands the cat, and off they go.

-

So overnight there are now four senshi in total, and the cat - Luna - trusts Jadeite for the first time ever. This feels like a good development, until Luna tells him that she has absolutely no answers for him. "If Artemis had answers, you ought to get them from him," says Luna. "My memories are as locked as everybody else's. I only know to find senshi because I can follow the energies, when _your_ people have less than helpfully drawn them out."

Unfortunately, such a quick explosion of senshi means that the Dark Kingdom steps up its game massively. Nephrite, Zoisite, _and_ Kunzite all appear during Jadeite's next plot involving a sports tournament and hundreds of ambitious young players. Jadeite's demon is easily defeated by Sailor Moon, as he expects, but even though it's four senshi, _and_ Tuxedo Maskmask against the three remaining Dark Kingdom generals, they don't stand much of a chance. The girls do what they can, but Kunzite alone is too powerful, securing them within seconds inside a dark force of Kunzite's making, a void-like energy-draining hemisphere. And if he weren't enough, he's brought Nephrite and Zoisite as backup.

So Jadeite crosses the floor. "You're on the wrong side," sneers Zoisite.

"Not really," says Jadeite. He aims his next attacks for Zoisite.

This of course pisses Kunzite off and draws some of his fire. But that leaves Nephrite free. And whatever tells Nephrite that Mamoru is special doesn't seem to work when he's Tuxedo Mask, because Nephrite has a clear shot and doesn't mind taking it.

It's funny, Jadeite thinks afterwards, he didn't even think, he could hardly have the time for it. He just reacted; there was a bright light - one of Nephrite's meteorite attacks - and white-hot flame and Jadeite found himself immediately atop Tuxedo Mask, throwing himself over him to keep him alive.

Jadeite's pretty sure he's been ripped in two. He hasn't, but he's burnt and bleeding from - well, everywhere. That _really_ hurts. Nephrite's aim is too good, and Jadeite weakly looks back up at him, thinking to say something or explain himself, he's not really sure. Nephrite's expression is puzzled but cautious. It's clear he has no idea why Jadeite would do such a thing.

It dawns on him that he's not walking away from this one. His last timeline, and he's wasted it on taking a bullet for another man.

But wasn't that what he was supposed to do? That's what guardians do, isn't it? One element of it feels right.

Zoisite, meanwhile, gears up for a final attack. The girls can do nothing, they're bound by Kunzite's void cage. At least they seem to have figured out that attacking it only fuels him. But all they can do is watch.

"No," says Tuxedo Mask softly. "No, you - you can't, you promised me we'd find our memories." He kneels closer to Jadeite.

"Get going, you idiot," coughs Jadeite. Every breath is agony.

Tuxedo Mask looks over at Moon, nearly buried inside Kunzite's shrinking void sphere, and then back to Jadeite, who's bleeding out in his arms. "I can't," he says.

"I won't let you get away with this!" cries a new voice.

A silhouette appears on the nearest rooftop, with long hair waving off of one shoulder, and a cat-shaped lump on the other. Sailor Venus takes a step into the floodlight to reveal herself.

"Orders?" shouts Nephrite.

"Retreat," says Kunzite.

"No!" Zoisite is indignant. "We've _got_ them, we can _take_ them!"

"We don't know what powers that one has or whether there are still more. They keep coming out of the woodwork." He looks down at Jadeite and sneers. "At least we've rid ourselves of our rat problem."

All three of them vanish into thin air. Nephrite hardly spares Jadeite a glance back.

Not like Jadeite really has the strength to return it, anyway. Merely the act of lifting his head has begin to hurt. He lets it fall onto something warm and soft and only afterwards realises it's Tuxedo Mask's hand.

So close to the white cat, and still so far! "The cat," Jadeite croaks. "The cat - has your memories - white cat -" He lifts a shaky hand to point at Venus. If this is his last timeline he has to make it worthwhile!

Tuxedo Mask catches it and clasps it to his chest. Heartwarming but _completely not the point!_ "Conserve your strength," Tuxedo Mask says, but it's too late, and a tingling suffuses him from his toes up as Jadeite dissolves...

-

53.

Fuck.

It's the radio station.

Fuck!

"You ready for this?" asks Flau.

No. "Uh-huh."

Okay, so that _wasn't_ the last timeline. There must still be something he's missing.

Also, dissolving is a deeply weird death! Jadeite's not sure he liked that, and he can't tell whether it's because of dying in someone else's arms, or because it was Mamoru's arms. Either way, not a fan.

It's almost good to be back here. He's got so many new things to explore now.

First things first. He'll have to poach at least one general to his side before he makes his grand floor-crossing gesture.

Nephrite is, as always, the most obvious target.

-

Actually getting Nephrite on board is a little trickier. Jadeite feels what it's like to take a meteorite to the face. About as fun as a cast-iron pan.

-

54.

"God _dammit,_ " says Jadeite under his breath.

"Problem?" asks Flau.

"No, no problem," he grumbles.

Okay, he has to remember he can't be too quick with Nephrite, Nephrite likes to take it slow, apparently. Jadeite's quickly running out of patience.

-

58.

It takes a few goes.

-

61.

Solution found, _finally_.

Nephrite plunged headlong into memory talk makes him suspicious, and he kills Jadeite before Jadeite can kill him, which is what he presumes Jadeite is intending to do, and Nephrite's strategy is just heading Jadeite off at the pass.

Nephrite plunged headlong into memory talk and then into defection talk will make him straight up eliminate Jadeite! And dying in Nephrite's arms is a lot of no fun, though at least Nephrite makes it quick.

No, Nephrite has to be eased into the memory talk, and then eased _again_ into the defection talk. Jadeite must've stumbled onto a perfect storm of settings way back when, when it happened for him the first time. It was accidental, and it's hard to replicate.

But he's finally got the hang of it. Get to Mamoru, talk him up. Get to the cat, talk it up. Get one senshi on board (after some trial and error, best results with Jupiter), and meanwhile get to Nephrite, talk him up about memories. Nephrite sees new senshi Jupiter and something jogs his memory here. Nephrite sees Mamoru and something jogs his memory again. Now that Nephrite's primed to think about memories and what they mean and how there's a mystery there to untangle and Beryl is doing nothing to untangle it, get Nephrite to Mamoru for a longer talk.

Nephrite never buys it when Jadeite comes alone and hands him all the answers in one neat little package, but he buys it after all of this when Jadeite brings him to Mamoru and hands them _both_ answers. Or something like answers, anyway.

Mamoru is expecting them this time, and Nephrite and Mamoru seem to recognise something in each other, which leaves Jadeite still on the outside looking in. (This is _fine_ , Jadeite thinks, grumbling.) Mamoru, Jadeite, and Nephrite take tea together and discuss plans. Nephrite flirts with Mamoru and Mamoru flirts back, right in front of Jadeite's tea. (This is _fine_ , Jadeite thinks, grumbling.) Nephrite and Mamoru stay up talking until far into the night in Mamoru's room and Jadeite takes the couch.

This is not fine. Literally, all of this? Is Jadeite's plan! At least invite him in!

Easing Nephrite into these things means giving him allies. Both Mamoru and Nephrite are both shocked by all of this memory and defection business, while Jadeite acts and talks like he's been doing this for awhile. Which, well, he has. But that sets up perfect conditions for Nephrite and Mamoru to bond over their shared astonishment and leave Jadeite behind.

Fine. If it gets Jadeite his memories and gets him out of this damn time loop, he can work with it.

-

Zoisite continues to catch up to them. He's got a sixth sense for defection specifically where Nephrite is concerned - either that or Nephrite's a godawful liar - and it doesn't take him long to sniff it out. He finds the three of them together and spears Nephrite in the gut while Jadeite is trying to protect Mamoru.

This leads to Nephrite dissolving in Mamoru's arms, just like those stars he loves. It's pretty awful, because Nephrite dying is always unpleasant for Jadeite, and he's old hat at seeing it by now. Mamoru, meanwhile, has never seen it before, and his anguish at finding one of his long-lost guardians, only to lose him again, is palpable.

"I'll find a better solution," says Jadeite to Mamoru softly, and when Zoisite comes around again to finish the job Jadeite lets him.

-

62.

Another radio station, another poaching Nephrite, another talk with Mamoru, another time that the two of them go off like peas in a damn pod and leave Jadeite behind.

This is the worst part of these time loops. No one is really on his level, because none of them remember it, and more and more Jadeite feels like a puppeteer holding the strings, like the player surrounded by board game pieces, like the only living man surrounded by zombies.

"Do you guys _have_ to," blurts Jadeite. He doesn't mean to, it just slips out.

Nephrite and Mamoru exchange glances. "You know, you can just join us," says Mamoru.

"No, thanks," he snarls mulishly. Jadeite doesn't need their pity. He folds his arms over his chest and curls into a ball of angry and pouts on the couch while Mamoru and Nephrite have themselves a _brilliant_ time, from the sounds of it.

  


All that distance from all these time loops doesn't stop Jadeite's guilt from eating him inside at Mamoru's anguish all over again. Even when Jadeite knows when Zoisite will strike and can evade an attack, Zoisite just comes back later, like the worst boomerang.

"I'll find a better solution," Jadeite mumbles. Mamoru barely turns around, and so he doesn't watch as Zoisite slits Jadeite's throat.

-

63.

"You know, you can just join us," says Mamoru.

"You know what," Jadeite says this time, "maybe I will."

It's different, at any rate. It's kind of glorious, and it almost makes Jadeite forget that he's doing this over and over again and receiving no clues of whether he's progressing, if he's winning, if he's losing, if he's making it all so much worse by screwing Mamoru and Nephrite. If he'd manage it any better if he somehow was able to poach Zoisite and Kunzite, too. (They would need a bigger bed.)

But it changes things just subtly enough that now Jadeite dies in Nephrite's arms. Nephrite won't leave him, even though Jadeite is trying to tell them both to leave, because Zoisite won't stop at just one, he'll collect a whole treasonous set.

As Jadeite dissolves, he finds Mamoru's anguish sounds just as real. At least he doesn't play favourites?

-

64.

Jadeite has to change it up, keep it variant. If he were only able to make some sort of notes to compare! But all he's got is his memory and all his memory seems to want to tell him now is _hey wasn't that fun to get laid for once_.

This time, before he poaches Nephrite, he gets Mamoru completely on his side. This takes a few weeks, during which the cat finds Mars and Mercury more or less organically without any assistance from Jadeite. Jadeite sleeps on the couch for most of it, but one night of shared closeness ends with Mamoru pressing him back into the couch and slipping a hand up his uniform tunic.

_Then_ Jadeite gets the cat, then gets Nephrite. They fall into bed so easily now. (Okay, it is fun to get laid for once.)

Zoisite finds out all the same.

-

65.

This is a rut, Jadeite realises. And he needs to get out of it. A few nights of fun at Mamoru's place costs him so much planning and lead-up! And the same thing happens over and over again with no change.

Supposing it's as easy as getting their own place, instead of bunking with Mamoru?

-

69.

It takes a few timelines for Jadeite to work that out. Easiest solution: use a disguise to look like a bank manager, then walk in, rob the joint, and buy an apartment in Makoto's building, where they ask fewer questions than in Mamoru's building about a guy with a ton of cash. Jadeite gets the procedure down to four hours' work and by the evening after Flau dies he has himself a nice enough place, modestly furnished.

Jadeite anonymously informs the cat, via the arcade, about a senshi (this time he picks Mars, for flavour), and thereby is able to convince Beryl it's to be able to better keep an eye on the obviously growing threat of the sailor brats.

Zoisite, apparently, is not convinced. Honestly, it's like Beryl isn't even _trying_ to hold him back!

-

70.

Jadeite wakes up Mercury _and_ Jupiter to convince Beryl that yes, he needs outside assistance with this growing senshi problem, but he'd really rather pick his own general. Naturally, he picks Nephrite.

Now Nephrite and Jadeite are together in Jadeite's slightly stolen apartment. Jadeite's gotten used to that once already. It's different from before - it's better, because he doesn't have to lie to Nephrite, and that's nice.

But there seems to be no way to convince Beryl that they don't somehow need Zoisite's help. Maybe it's just that Zoisite is hankering so badly for some Earth-time himself. Maybe Jadeite should poach Zoisite first, assuming Kunzite doesn't get mad about it.

It's a thought for the next timeline. After all, Jadeite's got so goddamn many!

Just like Jadeite's method of energy gathering was to take advantage of some system that naturally affects a lot of people and siphon from all of them, and Nephrite's method was to heighten the energies of once specific person and siphon from them, Zoisite too has his own method, as Jadeite discovers. It's based on infiltration and connections, which strikes Jadeite as oddly appropriate for a reason he can't quite put his finger on. Zoisite takes down one small group, and then picks up and takes down another small group in rapid succession. And Jadeite's gotta hand it to him, that's a great way to keep Beryl happy, which may be why she's so lenient on letting Zoisite do what he likes on Earth because at least he brings back results, while staying low on the radar.

Furthermore, Zoisite always targets groups strategically - he clearly has some information about Earth that he's making use of, because he's constantly picking groups that Sailor Moon doesn't really get involved with in the first place. Yakuza, for example - gangs, drug-running, smuggling, money laundering. People who are already somewhat on the fringes of society and somewhat parasitical to its existence, who don't have a lot of innocence to begin with.

"It's oddly tactical of him," says Jadeite.

Much as Nephrite's least favourite pillow talk topic is Zoisite, he indulges Jadeite anyway. "Makes sense," says Nephrite. "Zoisite has _some_ magical abilities to him, but not many. He mostly just flings petals at people and perches in the air. Didn't..." Nephrite frowns. "Didn't he used to have more? I could swear he did."

Jadeite agrees. "He did until Beryl got to him."

Interesting. So brainwashing and Metallia's influence doesn't actually affect their more magical abilities at all. If anything, it might _hinder_ them. Their abilities must be tied to something else. But what?

Zoisite's source of information and tactics is good enough to find out that Jadeite and Nephrite are not just playing house on Earth and trying to find the senshi to take them down, but also defecting. It's always when they make contact with Mamoru, Jadeite realises. Maybe he's had it all wrong - maybe Kunzite isn't following Jadeite, but Mamoru. Maybe Kunzite has some sort of sixth sense about Mamoru.

Two generals defecting usually doesn't bring Beryl's attention so greatly to Earth - she dispatches Zoisite to take them out. But this time she dispatches Zoisite _and_ Kunzite _and_ her best demons, the DD girls. Jadeite suspects it's the betrayal - Nephrite and Jadeite have been on Earth for _weeks_ now before they made contact with Mamoru, so Beryl thinks that it's been going on all that long.

Jadeite's cram school idea, in the hands of Zoisite, is now a money laundering operation run by a gang that works for the yakuza - so it's all tied in indirectly, but Ami Mizuno gets involved anyway. Jadeite would have thought she'd have better taste in cram schools before he realises that that's not really a thing, and _all_ cram schools are kinda skeevy, when you think about them. Ami being threatened brings in Sailors Jupiter and Moon, and that brings in Tuxedo Mask, and then the whole gang's here.

Literally, because when Mercury scans the demon teacher to find out why Garoben is so difficult to kill (Jadeite is also curious, no demon is so strong), she finds that it's not Garoben but Zoisite himself, cleverly disguised.

"I'm surprised!" yells Jadeite, "I didn't think you'd get your hands dirty like this!"

"My job," shouts Zoisite back, in between stinging gusts of wind that shoot sharp crystal projectiles, "was supposed to be searching for the Silver Crystal before you two failures decided to play for the wrong team! Now I've got demons doing _that_ job while _I_ have to fetch our Queen's energy and slay these sailors _and_ hunt _you_ down like the animals you are! Do you think our Queen has a spare army of generals?!"

Which is odd, Beryl's never seemed to treat them as anything but expendable.

Zoisite fires a crystal with a nasty spin and it arcs _around_ Jadeite, and if it weren't for Mercury's sharp scream Jadeite almost wouldn't've caught it in time but he does. Like with Mamoru, it's less thinking and more reacting. Jadeite twists, leaps backward, and catches the sharp edge of Zoisite's crystal in the neck as he falls over Mercury.

Kinda fair after all those times he's killed her.

-


	8. Chapter 8

71.

Jadeite wakes up again. Yay, he loves this _so much._

"Ready?" asks Flau, chipper and confident as ever. "That sailor brat won't know what hit her."

"I will shoot you in the face," he mumbles.

"Come again?"

"Ahaha, can't dispute the fates!" Jadeite says. Smooth. So smooth.

-

Okay, so. Two strategies.

One: Poach Nephrite, and be ready for an attack with _more_ senshi - he'd need to tell Luna about all of them, so they could all wake. And they _still_ might need Venus, and Jadeite can't guarantee he'll even _find_ Venus in time. Or -

Two: Take this slower and stop going gung-ho for Mamoru. Make a deal directly with Sailor Moon and Luna.

This means Jadeite really _would_ be playing for the other team. He'd be skiving off any help to Mamoru ... but in an indirect way, he'd also be assisting Mamoru? But it would help to keep the senshi under the radar while they try to find Venus, who has the cat Artemis, who seems to know something.

That seems the more likely strategy for the moment. Lay low, assist from afar, get to the cat, find Venus, get to the _white_ cat, get memories, profit.

Maybe the memories are what's been holding him back. Maybe he needs his memories to be able to break through the time loops... it's potentially worthy of investigation. 

This of course means that Jadeite needs to find his _own_ place on Earth, not just for temporary, and keep quiet about it from _everybody_ , Mamoru and Makoto included.

-

73.

It takes a few goes. Jadeite has to figure out where to get money - steal it, but less obviously. He then has to figure out how to get an apartment in a way that doesn't arouse suspicion the way a giant fat stack o' cash does. And he needs to figure out how to _forge_ papers to get a car. (He disguises himself all the time, surely he can disguise papers?)

-

78.

The moment Jadeite figures all of this out, it's taken him so long that Nephrite has been reassigned to the energy-gathering task on Earth. And maybe also to track Jadeite down too, since Jadeite goes MIA after the radio station plot, pretending that Sailor Moon's got him good with her discus and cooking up a nice visualisation for Kunzite and Beryl to feast their eyes upon.

Anyway, Nephrite on Earth is a hilariously unsubtle thing. He proceeds to conjure up money, conjure up his own castle in the woods like the villain that he is, and conjure up a bright red sports car. He calls himself Masato Sanjouin, a young eccentric millionaire, and _nobody questions it._

Nobody told Jadeite that was even an option!

-

79.

It isn't. Jadeite offs himself to try again, Nephrite's way. Nephrite's bullshitting talents, at least when it comes to flashy things (but never when it comes to defection!), are clearly splendid and outpace Jadeite's, because nobody believes Jadeite is a young eccentric millionaire with a hot rod sports car and a mysterious castle in the woods where he can sit alone and meditate on the stars with top-shelf single malt.

Fine, unfurnished bachelor pad it is. Why should Jadeite have nice things!

-

80.

Well, if the goal is to lay low then Jadeite doesn't really have much choice but the subtle route, so.

Through some clever sleuthing - it pays to keep tabs on whatever generals are relocated to Earth after Jadeite's mystery disappearance - Jadeite finds out through that Nephrite takes up Jadeite's torch on energy-gathering, and the other two meanwhile are sent out to search for Jadeite ever since Kunzite loses track of him after the radio station plan goes south.

This is a point of difference, because before Zoisite made it seem like Beryl was having him do _everything_ when Nephrite and Jadeite defected. Now the labour is divided more equally between the three remaining generals, but it still seems like the search for the Silver Crystal is on pause. It's possible that Beryl doesn't truly believe Jadeite's dead, and that's fair, he's not. But she weighs betrayal from her cause as heavily as she weighs that search, and Jadeite's not sure he'd agree. After all, didn't Metallia claim to be the one who had resurrected them? Wasn't it Metallia's power? What if that was really Beryl's power? Where's the dividing line?

Is it possible that Beryl dislikes betrayal because she knows it's Metallia's brainwashing power that keeps her generals to her, and she's concerned that this power is waning? Maybe Beryl ultimately doesn't trust Metallia, either. It'd fit.

A few rounds pass with Nephrite energy-collecting, until he discovers completely by accident that some of the people he's targeting for energy have an absurd amount of it - like, an unrealistic amount. Nephrite's stars guide him away from these individuals, and the reason why isn't clear to him or to Jadeite, who _knew_ there was a good reason to keep tabs on the other generals that wasn't just making sure they weren't too close on his trail.

Jadeite brings this info to Sailor Moon, who by now has been joined by Sailors Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter. They get Mercury to scan people (that supercomputer of hers truly is the real MVP) that Nephrite abandons for simple energy-gathering, since it's possible he - or another general, or Beryl herself - will return to reap such a reward. It'd help in advance to know who the targets might be.

"It's a crystal," says Mercury, astonished. "It's - it's an orange crystal."

"Is there any way to draw them out?" asks Mars.

Mercury shakes her head. "You'd need a crystal to get one," she says, "the energy potential well is too deep for any of our powers. Jadeite's comes close," and this has the cat as always glaring Jadeite's way, as though she knows he doesn't truly belong here, "but it's still not enough."

"Perhaps some other powerful dark crystal," reasons Luna. "I'll bet that's a rainbow crystal and there are six others. There were seven great demons of the Dark Kingdom. It would have to be some crystal from the Dark Kingdom that could fish them out."

It strikes Jadeite all of a sudden. The four stones in Mamoru's closet. If they were stones representing the guardians, and the guardians had become generals... wouldn't that technically make them Dark Kingdom crystals, in a way? Couldn't they be used?

The next time Nephrite energy-gathers, he lets the girls do their thing so that it draws Mamoru out to play Tuxedo Mask. Meanwhile, Jadeite raids Mamoru's closet for those stones. Rude? Yes. Necessary? Also yes. This move doesn't endear him to Luna, who asks where he got those crystals, and Jadeite can't reveal his source without outing Mamoru as Tuxedo Mask. Furthermore, only one of them works. The one that Mercury scans and says is -

"Jadeite," he replies. Of course, it figures. He can only use his own stone. Presumably Mamoru could use any one of them.

"How did you know?" Mercury asks.

Oh, you know. Pick the most useless general who's trapped in this weird time loop which he can't hack a way out of until he kills himself enough times that he can kill the part of Metallia that's in him and everything is _about him_ for some reason!

"Lucky, I guess," says Jadeite, and shrugs.

But they have their rainbow crystal and Luna finagles some way that Sailor Moon can heal the resulting demon that forms and restore the host. So that's good.

-

Now, Jadeite isn't dumb, and neither is Mercury. This is basic prism 101, which suggests that if there are seven such demons, and seven such crystals, all rainbow-coloured, each one of those rainbow crystals put together will probably form a really powerful white crystal. A Silver Crystal, if you will.

 _Game-changer._ If this is the case, that's the best lead they've gotten on the Silver Crystal yet (and it's only taken _eighty timelines_ ). And that information cannot get into anyone's hands from the Dark Kingdom. Mercury knows that, and Jadeite knows that.

Luna _also_ knows that, and Luna still thinks Jadeite fits under that Dark Kingdom No Bueno category. She's clearly concerned that he'll take that information back to them to play both sides. Which, to be honest, is a smart thing to do. Jadeite wouldn't do that because he's been de-Metallia-fied, but Luna only has his word on that, and that's never enough for this damn cat.

Luna gets Jadeite killed when she brings the jadeite stone to the arcade, hoping to - well, Jadeite's not really sure _what_ she intended with that. Storage? Scanning? Either way, the cat is too fast for Jadeite. But Kunzite - drawn to the arcade by the energy readings of whatever Luna's been stashing away back here - arrives. Jadeite hides, crouching behind the Sailor V console; Luna hides too in the crane game, pretending to be a toy.

Of course, she drops the jadeite stone as she slinks her way in.

Kunzite crushes it with his heel, then draws his hands up and does _something_ that obliterates it from existence, and that feels like Jadeite's been turned inside out.

-

81.

Death doesn't take. Never does.

So it seems like helping out the senshi is almost impossible because of the choices he's made, which he can't undo, because he only ever starts at the third mission. That's fair, Jadeite figures. Sad but fair. And the rest of those stones are probably safest in the hands of Mamoru, at least for now. The jadeite stone, he pilfers. He might as well, it's his best in to the Silver Crystal.

But if joining Mamoru doesn't yield good results, and joining the senshi doesn't bring any immediate successes... does that just mean Jadeite's all on his own?

That sounds pretty lonely. Also, doesn't leave him with a lot of potential security to evade the remaining generals, at least some of whom continue to track Jadeite after his disappearance post-radio station plot. More the better that Jadeite retrieves his stone, if he's going to be all alone out here!

Unless...

Unless Jadeite dresses up in a Tuxedo with a Mask and follows the senshi around to assist but from a distance!

 _Genius._ I'm a goddamn genius, he thinks.

-

There is a slight problem with this, and it's that Sailor Moon is now head over heels in love with _both_ of them. It's surreal but it definitely helps the legend. Jadeite is reminded of that time forever ago when he was on Thetis' cruise ship and that one photojournalist (who wound up being Sailor Moon in disguise) wouldn't let go of him. This is exactly like that.

However, it also means that Tuxedo Mask can be in two places at once. So while the original Tuxedo Mask isn't too sure what to think of his new doppelganger, they are on a similar enough wavelength that they both see the advantages.

The new, blonder Tuxedo Mask doesn't meet with that damn cat, which means the senshi come out slower than they have in other timelines, and the Dark Kingdom is a frog in slowly-boiling water.

After Jadeite defects, Nephrite winds up being the one to take over Jadeite's roles. This time, getting to Mamoru _doesn't_ pull Zoisite's attention, and spiriting Nephrite away is easily done. Jadeite poaches him so much more easily once Zoisite and Kunzite are thrown off the trail - two Tuxedo Masks make that relatively easy.

And Nephrite doesn't look poached, he looks kidnapped, from Zoisite's (and Beryl's) perspective. Beryl acts less betrayed, and more annoyed that her generals' perfect plans aren't working so well. There's a clear line of blame here - it's not Metallia's fault, it's not Beryl's fault, it's Zoisite and Kunzite!

So the last remaining unknown is whether Nephrite will kill Jadeite directly once he starts talking about memories and defection, and how slowly Jadeite has to ease him into it.

But... Nephrite doesn't kill him at all. And it takes some time working out why! Nephrite is _always_ suspicious when Dark Kingdom Jadeite talks a big game about defecting, but an openly-defected Jadeite in a disguise is okay?

Either that or the tuxedo has really helped Nephrite see only the elements of Tuxedo Mask, in which he sees elements of Mamoru or Endymion or both, whom he has an unexplainable instinct to trust. Then, as usual, Nephrite focuses less on the analytical side, happy to trust a heuristic without thinking too hard about it, because that logic must be there for a reason.

Eh, either way. Jadeite unmasks himself and all Nephrite can say once the shock has worn off is, "Cool tuxedo. Where do I get one?"

-

So now there are _three_ Tuxedo Masks, and soon there are three senshi: Moon, Mars, and Mercury. This is winning, thinks Jadeite. Nephrite's happy to stick by Mamoru and assist the senshi, which lets Jadeite sneak around to see what the rest of the Dark Kingdom is doing.

Beryl steps up her game too - not like Jadeite was expecting anything else. Zoisite and Kunzite now have to _both_ go out and get energy _and_ find the Silver Crystal all on their lonesome. This must be getting rather annoying for them. Jadeite's almost sympathetic.

Zoisite makes greater use of demons but he's losing the hold he once had on them, and he doesn't have any control over Beryl's demons, so he starts failing harder at energy-gathering. And Jadeite's sleuthing around the Dark Kingdom shows that Beryl is very annoyed at that (some things never change). Once Zoisite's in hot water with Beryl, Jadeite suspects, it'll all come unravelling down. Kunzite is torn because he wants to help out Zoisite, but also, Beryl is literally their boss, and Jadeite has a sneaking suspicion he'll pick Beryl over Zoisite.

When Luna finally stumbles over Makoto, and the rainbow crystals are discovered, Jadeite feels it's ripe Zoisite poaching time.

"I dunno," says Nephrite. "Kunzite first. Kunzite's the leader, Zoisite's the follower in that relationship. Anything that comes from Kunzite, Zoisite is more likely to want to hear in the first place. Plus the way I see it now, Kunzite's under more stress trying to play peacemaker."

It's worth a shot.

 _It pays off_. Within two weeks they've poached Zoisite _and_ Kunzite both. Zoisite ragequits like Usagi ragequit the gym after one too many failures - Beryl's this close to Eternal-Sleeping him, and it's a point of pride to swoop by in the nick of time and carry Zoisite off.

"Put me down!" says Zoisite, pounding his fists on Jadeite's back. "I can _fly on my own_."

Jadeite flicks the mask off. "Didn't you wonder where we all were?" Zoisite's shocked face is too amusing. Also cute.

"You're _joking!_ " cries Zoisite. "You all left me alone to do _all_ the work and just waited until I exhausted myself? Don't you know how tiresome it is, when you have to do it all, and you keep failing?!"

"Yeah, I have a few ideas," Jadeite snaps. "Want a tuxedo?"

So now they're at four generals, one Tuxedo Mask, four senshi, including Sailor Moon. _Winning!_ thinks Jadeite. All they need now is two more rainbow crystals, and they'll be able to assemble the Silver Crystal - and then it'll all be over!

  


-

But Beryl gets some mad once she realises who the Tuxedo Masks are. She gets so mad she actually _comes to Earth herself_. It's been awhile since Jadeite has seen her. And he doesn't recognise her anymore. She's ten feet tall, skeletal-thin, and gaunt with sunken greenish skin. Her dress is red now, not purple, and Jadeite's pretty sure he knows what that means.

"I am one with the power of the ages!" Beryl intones, "I am one with the holy darkness!"

She's _fused_ with Metallia.

They all look to Jadeite, who's usually got all the answers, but this is new ground for him and he doesn't even know where to strike first. "Go for the head, I guess?" he suggests.

No such luck.

Nephrite's asteroids are vaporised instantly. Zoisite's blasted back in a gust of energy; anything she throws at Kunzite he absorbs but he doesn't seem to be able to reflect it back at her. The girls do their best but altogether anything they throw at her she flings away. Mercury has what seem like good results with a fog but she does _something_ and she can see through it, evidently.

Beryl picks them all off one by one, starting with the senshi. Her long fingers grow lightning fast and spear through Jupiter, impaling her; she breathes fire like a dragon and Mars crisps. She freezes Mercury and shatters her; and Sailor Moon meanwhile falls to an awful attack that has Beryl sucking the energy from her. Beryl bellows outward with the force of it, bloated by Moon's energy, and this second powerful gust of energy has Tuxedo Mask's face revealed.

Beryl screeches like the banshee she's become. "Mine Endymion!" she shrieks. "You will be mine, at my side, and I shall rule over the earth as its void queen!"

The sky darkens, and it blots out the sun.

-

The four erstwhile generals, formerly guardians, are not to be trusted anymore. No matter how Mamoru begs and pleads for mercy for them it's not enough, or Metallia has no mercy and Beryl was already running on fumes where that was concerned.

Jadeite, Kunzite, Zoisite, and Nephrite wind up in various mining energy capacities, extracting it from plants, animals, humans, anything to feed Metallia's disgusting hunger. They're quickly robbing the earth dry, and they have no ability to stop.

Turns out the Dark Kingdom winning is not at all what Jadeite wanted.

Quietly, Jadeite fishes out his stone, which he never handed over to Mamoru after using it to find rainbow crystals, and tells Kunzite what to do.

-

82.

Alright! Well! That sure was a fun way to die, thinks Jadeite, let's never do that again.

He's never been so glad to see Flau. The radio station. All the electronic equipment. All the humans asleep in the other room so that Jadeite can Midnight Zero it up. All the stupid letters with people's love stories. God, it's all so _wonderful_ and full of _life_.

They're missing something, he realises, as he reads out the letters, hardly paying attention to them by now. They're still missing something, or some element, and now he's really out of ideas.

But Jadeite knows who _might_ have ideas (or at least something to go on) - Sailor Mercury and her cool new supercomputer.

-

88.

Unfortunately it takes a few deaths to work out the perfect point at which Mercury is awakened as a senshi and is given the supercomputer. It takes a few more deaths to realise there's a potential shortcut to waiting for Mercury to trust him. (Luna's always a lost cause. Moon, meanwhile, adores him from the get-go. Must be the tuxedo and the mask.)

Why not just steal the supercomputer? He's seen her use it!

Which is how Jadeite discovers it's keyed to her specifically.

Ami wakes blearily, not because Jadeite was making a lot of noise in her apartment. She must just be an insanely light sleeper. "Is this a dream?" she asks.

"Uh," says Jadeite. "Sure?"

Ami is clearly not convinced and glares. "Tuxedo Mask or not, you can't just enter people's bedrooms!" She twists to the side for her transformation pen.

"Wait!" Jadeite extends his cane to block her. "It's definitely a dream. Look, could I in reality do this?" He uses his powers to levitate, floating around in a lazy figure-eight. "Or this?" He takes off his hat and taps it and it sprouts flowers.

It's amazing the kinds of things you can do when you can project images in front of people. Good to know if he ever truly fails at this business, Jadeite's got a missed calling as a _street magician_.

"I guess not," says Ami.

"Listen," Jadeite continues. "I want to ask you about this weird ... math problem, let's say. It involves a lot of variables, related rates, factors, and changes."

"So, it's calculus," says Ami.

"Ye-es," says Jadeite. "Fancy dream calculus. That you probably need your supercomputer for."

Luckily for Jadeite, apparently this also happens in Ami's dreams often enough that she doesn't question it.

Ami listens to him tell her about everything he's learned and patiently plugs in the variables and makes some behavioural assumptions. Soon enough it solves the system of equations and produces a different set of values. She tells him what they mean. "Ami," says Jadeite, "thank you - _thank you_ for this -" he darts forward and pecks her on the cheek before he realises he's done it. But it's not like he doesn't mean it! It's rather more impulsive than he usually is. "I would be _lost_ without this," he says, and means it honestly.

Ami blushes. "Well, it seems like you're helping us, Tuxedo Mask," she says. "Provided you're on our side... I'll help you in return."

Jadeite leaps out the window and forgets to land.

-

89.

So. After making Ami's supercomputer run a bunch of different simulations and crunch a _lot_ of data, here's what Jadeite has learned:

a) Getting all the generals is extremely difficult and Jadeite stumbled over the right solution: get Nephrite first, then Kunzite, who gets Zoisite. According to the description Jadeite gave, Kunzite is difficult to poach in the first place, because he's either _very_ under the influence of Metallia and her hold is strongest there with him (42.3% chance), or he's not very much under her influence and is playing a long game that involves him being extremely covert and not breaking character for anyone, including Jadeite himself (57.6% chance, 0.1% to account for quantum fluctuational uncertainties, which Ami explains is why sometimes things are almost the same in any one timeline _but not quite_ ).

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way to get Kunzite to break character.

b) Getting all the senshi is easy, relatively. But then they don't believe that Jadeite is for real. Luna still doesn't fully trust Tuxedo Mask, either, so dressing up like him doesn't always help.

Either way, getting everyone on your team makes for a great and fun party where everybody gets a tuxedo, but it doesn't help against Beryl. To go up against her they need something truly powerful. Probably not even Venus would help balance the scales; she only helps against Kunzite because Kunzite is rational and doesn't want to go up against an unknown senshi. Beryl fused with Metallia is perfectly _unhinged_ and doesn't know the meaning of rationality! Probably the only thing that would be of _any_ use against her would be the Silver Crystal itself. They don't seem to be able to poach Beryl. (Or could they? She's oddly attracted to that Endymion; he could be bait.)

c) Getting memories according to Mamoru is also only done via the Silver Crystal. But there's a possibility with the white cat, too. If the white cat wasn't making stuff up, because Luna lies all the damn time. ("Oh yes, Tuxedo Mask, thank you so much, you've been wonderful and we are all very appreciative of your help, and we definitely trust you!")

d) So far, no combination of allying with the sailors and guardians has seemed to even put a _dent_ in the time loop. Jadeite supposes that's sort of good - he can't fuck up - but also sort of bad - he can't see a solution out of it.

Out of everything he's tried, one thing remains - the memories. That's got to be what's left to break these time loops. And the only thing that seems to restore the memories is the Silver Crystal.

At least it makes sense that that's why he wants to stick with Mamoru! Besides their shared history, they have a mutual goal.

(The other option is Venus' white cat, but getting to Venus seems so impossible! Venus herself continues to be a massive unknown.)

It's a little unfortunate that being released from Metallia's hold didn't spontaneously give him his memories back. But Mamoru's memories are just as hazy and he was never brainwashed into working for Beryl. Well, except for in that one timeline, but that timeline's over.

Or...

Or maybe it didn't work for Jadeite, but it might work for someone else, whose memories are a little closer to the surface.

-

90.

Nephrite hates dying by fire, and Jadeite hates holding him there. It doesn't solve anything. No Metallia pops out, all Nephrite does is _die_ and all Jadeite can think is _you bastard, take me with you already_.

-

91.

It doesn't seem to help Kunzite, either. No Metallia, just screaming.

-

92.

Ditto Zoisite.

-

93.

Burning people is just not a lot of fun, generally! Jadeite really doesn't know how Mars manages it all the time.

It doesn't make them any more easy to poach or any more lenient. It doesn't seem to permanently remove any bits of Metallia in them, unlike with Jadeite. Only Nephrite has become, relatively speaking, fairly easy to talk to about memories and defection, but that’s after Jadeite's figured out a few tricks and shortcuts and heuristics.

But Nephrite never remembers anything more that he hasn't already discovered in previous iterations, and neither does Mamoru.

God, what Jadeite would _give_ for just a scene of something that happened when they were his guardians. Anything at all, no matter how mundane! Guardian Zoisite dusting the sacred castle! Guardian Nephrite washing the royal car!

Jadeite needs to regroup. Or he needs to find Venus and that damn cat.

Think, think! What is it that draws Venus in? Everybody being in giant amounts of trouble, for one. She seems to just _arrive_ , right in the nick of time.

Jadeite tries the one where he slowly gets everyone on his side again, and it winds up being them against Super Beryl, and the Dark Kingdom wins. Even though he told himself he never even wanted to _see_ this timeline again, maybe it'll be worth it if he can get some intel on Venus.

He manages fifteen minutes of Venus time. _Maximum_. It's hardly enough to introduce himself, let alone get her to trust him and convince her cat that he's a good guy, really!

-


	9. Chapter 9

109.

Jadeite does this for like twenty more lives before he realises it's never going to be enough on its own to get to Venus.

He has to get to Venus organically. There was one, so long ago, when Endymion had been captured and brainwashed and turned into some kind of Dark Prince Endymion, and that's the one where he'd met Artemis. Of course, that kicked off by Jadeite killing Sailors Moon and Mars. And he's no longer sure he really wants to do that anymore.

In fact, if he's honest with himself, he's pretty sure he's done killing people just for shits and giggles. It's more than worn off its welcome.

No, there has to be another way.

But he's tried _everything!_ Short of waiting for the perfect storm of accidental variables. And as Ami herself said, there are so many states and possibilities that could take until the heat death of the universe. Jadeite is not willing to wait that long.

At any rate, it would probably help to be on the senshi's side when Venus does spontaneously appear... And he needs to figure out the ins of the senshi like he has those of the other generals.

-

131.

Some more timelines later, Jadeite has discovered that:

...if you appeal to Ami's intelligence, she thinks you're trying to hide something. If you flatter her in anyway, she trusts you _less_. It is impossible to befriend her by trying to get close to her, and she seems to push everyone away. Unless you need her help. _Then_ she likes you.

... Makoto is a puppy and if anybody so much as wounds her a little, Jadeite will murder someone. Even though Makoto could probably also murder someone.

... Rei is prickly and icy and yet she warms up to him _first_ for no reason (maybe she can sense elements of the ritual they did?). This doesn't make any sense, but that winds up being something of a constant for Rei.

... Usagi cries a lot. Like, a _lot_. And half of the time it's for really dumb reasons! But the other half of the time... it's not for dumb reasons, and people have a tendency to see past that. And that isn't fair. Jadeite has now spent a lot of time being her shoulder to cry on. He finds that after the first nine hundred gallons of tears, it's really not so bad.

... the cat hates him, but Jadeite suspects that's just a cat thing. He figures he's a dog person.

... Mamoru's a really good kisser. Jadeite probably should not have kissed Mamoru, but he did. They wound up bonding over not having any memories and these memories belligerently _not_ returning no matter what they did and how hard they wished them and one thing led to another and a gentle kiss happened and then Jadeite was leaned back on Mamoru's couch with Mamoru's hand up his shirt and it felt so electrifyingly brilliant. Is this what love is like?

... Venus continues to elude them, and that's a _whole ass problem_.

-

132.

By now, Jadeite's made something of a routine of it, to get to what he calls a more or less pleasing outcome. He allows himself to be killed at least for Kunzite's cameras by Sailor Moon's discus during the radio station plot, and this brings in Nephrite to energy-gather, and Zoisite to hunt for Jadeite. Meanwhile, Jadeite finds himself a new apartment. He can't take Nephrite too soon or Kunzite will _also_ join in, and that becomes problematic. Best to leave Zoisite busy hunting Jadeite, and keep undercover.

If he makes direct contact with Mamoru, Zoisite finds out about it; however, if a blond Tuxedo Mask makes contact with a dark-haired Tuxedo Mask, all is hunky dory, apparently.

Thus, Jadeite manages to stay under the radar and the best he can do is slip people information. Tuxedo Mask has no idea who the other Tuxedo Mask is, or why the other Tuxedo Mask sends him cryptic information by mysteriously appearing on the balcony and whooshing away dramatically into the night. (That's not even Jadeite's favourite way to disappear! But it's what Mamoru likes to do, so Jadeite as Tuxedo Mask mimics. Gotta keep up the legend.) He does the same with Usagi whenever she's in trouble as Sailor Moon; Usagi is less willing to hear his actual good advice and more willing to swoon, but the cat is there and the cat at least listens to what he has to say, even if she doesn't trust him.

Thus is he able to push these two kids slowly where he needs to get them.

It's exhausting being the puppeteer. He's reminded of the times he spent with Mamoru, or Nephrite, or even just chilling with Makoto or Ami, and feeling like he actually had a friend. Even that time that he burnt himself in front of Rei (that must've been a pretty shitty night for her!) was good up until that point, because he was as lost as she was. He had a kindred spirit, at least.

The only way to recoup that feeling is by getting lost himself. For that to happen he has to find at least one new state, and then push it into uncharted territory. In theory, that should be pretty easy to do. In practice, however, everybody obeys heuristics, and once you've figured them out, their movements become a lot easier to predict, and there are no surprises, not really.

It's not like Jadeite doesn't enjoy himself. He's been on this particular mission before - he and Usagi are going undercover as a couple on Thetis' romantic couples cruise ship plan, because according to Jadeite's sleuthing, Nephrite is convinced there's three people he can tap for heightened energy in this crowd. (Jadeite's a terrible dancer, so he's killed himself a few times, gotten dancing lessons, and come back to this timeline to be a better one. This is as far as he's made it, yet.)

And at least Usagi's having the time of her life. She lays her head on Jadeite's shoulder and gives a happy sigh.

"You know I'm not _really_ Tuxedo Mask, right?" Jadeite says.

"You're not the _first_ Tuxedo Mask, sure," replies Usagi. "And sometimes I can't tell you both apart from a distance."

"I mean," says Jadeite, somewhat flustered. "I mean I'm not the _real_ one."

"But you must be _a_ Tuxedo Mask," says Usagi, "because you keep saving me, and that's Tuxedo Mask's job." She grins and throws her arms around his neck.

Jadeite sighs. He's tried to tell Usagi a number of times now exactly how timeloops work and it's not that she doesn't get it, but she doesn't believe him. Sometimes she starts to cry because she thinks she's being broken up with, when they weren't even dating in the first place. Maybe she's got a point. Maybe things really can be that simple, and his weakness is overthinking it all.

Nephrite chooses then to strike and shuts the ballroom doors like it's not a giant fire hazard. "Alright, stick to the plan," says Jadeite.

"What plan?" says Usagi.

"Oh, uh. Right. This is a new timeline and you don't know the plan. So the plan is -"

"What _timeline?_ " says Usagi.

Jadeite's possibly put his foot in it now, but Nephrite saves him the trouble by extracting a black stone which he casts to the three people he was supposed to be tapping for heightened energy. Behind him, Thetis looks very pleased.

That's...

That's one of the stones in Mamoru's closet.

Thetis draws the main curtain back like it's a theatrical presentation and there's Mamoru in full Tuxedo regalia, gagged and tied to a chair. "Where are you, Sailor Moon," she calls out in a catty sing-song. "I've got one of your useless partners - come and get him!"

"Now," booms Nephrite from the stage, "I'm not asking for much, and I won't disturb your ... _lovely_ evening. Just give me the rainbow crystals and I'll be gone."

There's just one problem with that, which is that when the rainbow crystals are extracted they have a tendency to release terrible demons. And Thetis knows this. And given that he's somehow perverted his _own stone_ to use it to zone in on the rainbow crystals, Nephrite probably also knows this.

"I really hate it when he's evil," says Jadeite to himself. He turns to Usagi. "Alright, we're gonna want to transform."

Jadeite can't protect Sailor Moon _and_ go after Tuxedo Mask, and he knows which one Mamoru would prefer he do first. He hopes that Mars and Mercury will get here in time.

But they don't.

-

133.

"I give up," Jadeite says. "You win, I'll - I'll just - I give up. I'll just stick it out here and wait for her to come to me, I guess."

"What are you _talking_ about?" asks Flau, totally baffled. "Who are you even talking to?"

"No one," says Jadeite. "No one at all."

-

137.

Being on the side of the Dark Kingdom without actually being in the Dark Kingdom is pretty shitty. And a few times he fucks it up, too, because they can all tell he's not exactly happy with things and Beryl doesn't tolerate attitude. She Eternal Sleeps him once, Kunzite kills him another time, the rest are Zoisite, which Jadeite suspects are Beryl dispatching a general to finish Jadeite off.

This time is no different than theirs, it simply lasts longer. Jadeite's taken to bringing another general with him, so that they can do the real heavy lifting. Last plot was Zoisite, next one is Nephrite, this time it's Kunzite. Technically Kunzite is the tag along, but Jadeite feels more like it.

"You know, feel free to start work any time," mutters Kunzite.

"Mm-hmm," says Jadeite tonelessly.

The worst part is that there is _nothing_ to differentiate this one from any of the others.

They're in an elevator in a huge tower called the Cerulean. Jadeite gets on with a bunch of other people on the first floor, and happily he's the only one to press the button for the top floor, which is where he and Kunzite are staking out. (Jadeite's pretty sure Kunzite's blocked it off so that nobody besides them is able to access that floor? But Jadeite doesn't know for sure because Jadeite hasn't actually bothered checking. Jadeite does not care.)

Part of the plan (this part partially concocted by Nephrite) involves a man staying in the hotel part of it who's nearing his energy peak, according to Nephrite's stars. The goal is to tag him and isolate him for Nephrite's use _next_ plan. And in addition to that, there's like five conventions in the next two weeks alone. With all this hubbub, Jadeite is sure to collect enough energy to placate Beryl and Metallia, and ideally can avoid major senshi detection, which is good, because Beryl's appreciation of him is on the wane these days.

A girl gets on at the 5th floor.

She's quite pretty, long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, wide smile. Well, pretty for a regular human who isn't a senshi, but it's not just her beauty. There's a delicateness about her features that seems at once familiar and alien. Jadeite isn't sure why but he feels like she isn't human. It's freaky, but he can't put his finger on it. He looks at her in starts and fits, hoping that he'll work it out before she notices him watching and gets creeped out, which really isn't his intention.

On the ninth floor, as a janitor is exiting, the girl catches Jadeite watching her and gives him a sly, coy look out of the corner of her eyes. It takes serious skill to keep the flush out of his cheeks.

Everyone has filtered out of the elevator by the 15th, and Jadeite is half tempted to get off early too when -

"Are you here for the convention?"

He coughs in surprise. "Yes," he says quickly, trying to recover some semblance of acting natural.

The girl smiles. "Maybe I'll see you there, then. Booth 42," and the elevator dings her stop. Twenty-ninth floor.

It's a good thing there's some time between floor 29 and floor 47, because Jadeite suddenly finds he requires it to steel himself for what he's about to let Kunzite do.

-

Jadeite sees her later on his way down. "You again," she says. He smiles in reply, feeling so guilty.

More people join them so Jadeite doesn't make small talk. It'd be awkward, anyway.

As they all filter out of the cabin at ground, Jadeite taps her on the shoulder. "Listen, about the convention," he begins.

"I'm real excited for it," the girl says. "I hope I'll meet a lot of my fans -"

"You should be careful," Jadeite says, warningly. "And, maybe on Saturday night, not be there."

The girl gives him a scrutinising look. "What do you mean?" she asks.

"Just, I've heard rumours there'll be some danger."

"Like an attack?" she says. "How do you know all this anyway? You some kinda operative?"

"No, no!" Maybe. Yes. "Of course not. I just -" and Jadeite doesn't know why he's telling her this, anyway, she's just some human, the more energy for Metallia, she won't even remember this next timeline, because there is always a next goddamn timeline - but at the same time, can't he just get someone else's energy? It doesn't have to be hers! "I-it's just a feeling I've got. Probably nothing. Sorry to bother you, Miss."

Her blue eyes are narrowed but she doesn't seem angry, only pensive. "Actually, I think I get it," she says. "I have a friend like this."

"Like what?"

"Oh, like you," she explains. She makes a gesture around her temples. "You know. With the sight. Psychic."

Yes! Psychic. Exactly. That will do nicely. Actually, why the hell didn't Jadeite think of that? "Yeah, I don't really like to publicise it. I could always be wrong."

"You don't give me the impression you felt wrong about what you saw. It's tough to give advice. Easy to take it though." She turns to leave him then, but now she's smiling so it counts for something. Still, Jadeite feels like he's being flirted with and is so conflicted about this that he forgets to correct her about advice, which is, in his experience, much easier to give than receive.

-

Jadeite checks the convention later, doing his rounds before the plan goes off. Kemi, the demon he's been working with, has laced the pastries and coffee with enough of a knock-out drug to have everybody safely dozing off (including the panelists) by 3pm. They'll all be in the main hall. The doors'll be locked, everything will be fine. A routine energy-gathering operation. He's done so many of these he could do them in his sleep.

He tries not to look, telling himself it's stupid, but finds himself helplessly searching for booth 42 in the east wing room, but the name Minako Aino doesn't ring a bell. Should he know her? She acted like he should.

Somehow knowing her name - this tiny, puny, frail, energy-filled human that he should see as prey - makes her that much more real in his mind, like he's been playing with dolls and figurines but this one is actual. The real deal. He can't even justify to himself why he lets Kemi take charge of the whole show so that he can hunt around in the audience, looking for a girl with spun silk gold hair and eyes the colour of zenith on a clear day.

Alright, Jadeite admits it, now he's just being ridiculous. This sentimentality is silly and unbefitting a general of the Dark Kingdom, not like he really acts the part. But he _is_ acting like a complete fool. The only good part about it all is it's been so far entirely in his head, so it's not like anybody has seen. Kunzite doesn't even suspect. Jadeite should really, really stop this stupidity.

That logic doesn't stop him from being thrilled when he doesn't find her among the dozing masses.

Jadeite is tempted to go looking for her the next day, once Beryl's had their way with both Nephrite and Jadeite's plans. (Of course _Beryl's_ satisfied; the Sailors won't make an appearance until they do this a third time, or a second if the media picks it up as a story - oh, Jadeite should really think about a media-based plot - and since the senshi didn't show, neither did Tuxedo Mask.) Jadeite even knows where she is, who she is. Booth 42. Minako Aino. _Minako._ What a pretty name.

No, don't go look her up. In two timeloops he'll have forgotten she existed.

Wisely, Jadeite forces himself to return to the Dark Kingdom and get drunk instead. If Nephrite wonders why he's drinking so much when typically he nurses the same drink all evening, he keeps the questions to himself, for which Jadeite is very grateful. At this point he's so far gone he might just spill the beans with little prodding, and then what will Nephrite do? Probably put him out of his misery.

-

138.

He can't get her out of his head. Back at the convention again, Kunzite's with him, Nephrite's plan, Kemi the demon. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But there's no one at Minako Aino's desk this time, just posters of her plastered behind on the walls and a white cat sitting on a chair.

Jadeite frowns.

The cat gives him a mean glare in return and hops off the bench. Its hairs are raised and it doesn't look happy, but frankly, it's a cat -

Still, it's only a cat, really there's nothing to be afraid of -

"Artemis!" he hears. Racing up to his other side is Minako. "Oh, thank god, you found him."

"You... have a cat," Jadeite replies slowly, putting it together. "I didn't know you had a cat."

Minako kneels forward and holds her arms open; Artemis the cat runs and leaps into them and gives Jadeite a bitter look. "He sorta ran away from me back there. Hope he didn't bug you too much."

Jadeite doesn't answer her. " _Artemis_ ," he says. "The white cat..."

"Yeah," says Minako. She waves her hand in front of Jadeite's face. "Hey, you OK? You're zoning out here, big time."

"You don't look a thing like Sailor Venus," murmurs Jadeite.

Minako freezes. "Excuse me?" she says, her voice deadly.

"I will be _right_ back," says Jadeite.

-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (please bear with us, we are Under Construction, remainder to be posted within a day)


	10. Chapter 10

139.

He found her. He can't believe he actually _found_ her!

"Ready?" asks Flau.

"Yes," says Jadeite, "but not for that."

Jadeite's been thinking of this for so long it's actually galvanising that it's really happening. He lets Flau die and pretends to fall victim to the discus so he can steal his apartment and a car. Then when everybody's looking for him and nobody's finding him, he tracks down Minako Aino.

She doesn't actually _live_ in Japan yet, which is wild, so Jadeite teleports to London to find her. It takes three days to track her down, but he finally does, and knocks at her apartment door. Minako answers and Jadeite realises he hasn't figured out what exactly to say.

"This is going to sound so weird," he blurts. "But can I talk to your cat?"

"My - cat," says Minako.

"Artemis. The white cat. Can I talk to him?"

A white cat pads slowly to Minako’s ankles.

Jadeite's sure he looks more and more crazy based on the looks Minako's giving him. "He's a cat," says Minako slowly. "Do you... do you speak cat?"

"Meow, meow, something something, Sailor V. Good enough?"

Minako slams the door in his face.

-

140.

"I don't speak cat, I just... think he's super cute and would like to pet him?"

-

141.

"I'm a famous animal photographer and I couldn't help but notice how adorably fluffy he is! Is he part Caine Moon?"

-

145.

"He shat in my rose bushes and I demand recompense."

-

148.

"You know what," says Jadeite. "This is gonna sound crazy no matter what I say, so I might as well just say it. There's this one guy who is following you around - no, he's not me, he's a demon. And you're gonna have to fight him, because you're Sailor V. You're going to want to know whether I'll reveal your secret, and also know how I know that. And the answer is no, I won't, though you have no way to trust me besides my word, and I know because I've been constantly reliving the same mission and lifetime over and over again, which I swear is the honest to god truth but you will probably not believe me because it sounds like the plot of a movie but trust me on this, it's driving me absolutely insane. I need to speak to the cat to regain my memories so I can _make this nightmare stop._ "

"Yeah, I dunno," says Minako. She glares, suspicious.

"I think we can trust him, Minako," says Artemis the talking cat, from behind her ankles.

Oh thank fuck, thinks Jadeite. "You are so much better than Luna. She _never_ trusts me."

-

Artemis reveals what he knows, which isn't much. There _was_ a war. The sailors aren't some random girls that have mysteriously high energies, they're reincarnated guardians of the Moon princess. (Who's probably Sailor Moon, because Jadeite can put two and two together, but Artemis leaves some margin for error here. Jadeite is given the impression that in the absence of Moon, that role falls to Venus. Makes him wonder what would have happened later in the timelines where he killed Sailor Moon.) The Moon princess' mother - the Moon queen - used the Silver Crystal (which is abominably powerful, it seems!) to end the war, lock away any dangers from the Dark Kingdom, and send out her daughter and her guardians to be reborn in a time of peace. Well, so much for peace. Which is why it's their job now, as reincarnations of those guardians, to pick up that torch again and fight, even though they don't remember jack about the era where apparently they prospered. Because in a way, it wasn't actually them.

It's not actually clear whether the moon Artemis keeps referring to is this Earth's moon, or whether these people have been travelling in space all this time. If that's the case, Jadeite figures, their original planets could be from anywhere up to a thousand light years away. Maybe the Moon princess was never human, maybe her guardians weren't human. Maybe Jadeite isn't either. Certainly the talking cats don't seem like they're from this planet!

"Anyway," says Artemis, by way of conclusion, "Serenity was a master wielder of the Silver Crystal; I don't think she would have accidentally brought you and your Dark Kingdom friends here with it. I think it was some other force that did that. And whatever that force was, that force probably obscures your memories."

"Metallia," says Jadeite, as understanding dawns. "Metallia did always say that it was through her grace that we were reborn at all."

Minako frowns. "So... so what, so you're saying you shouldn't even be here?"

"I wish," says Jadeite. "But in the absence of Metallia I'm _still_ here, and I can't explain that. And Metallia's absence hasn't given me any memories, either. You talk about this war, but it's like a fairy tale to me."

"Me too, to be honest," says Minako. "And it's not even the first time I've heard this story."

"It's possible that the power of the Silver Crystal could be harnessed to unlock your memories," says Artemis. "I don't know for sure. You said that the first time you died, it was by this Eternal Sleep. Have you ever considered that this time loop business _is_ Eternal Sleep?"

Horrific.

It'd make sense.

It'd be _just like Beryl._

"Would the Silver Crystal be enough to take me out of this Eternal Sleep?"

"It's possible," Artemis says. "I don't know. I can't say, it all depends on if we can find the Moon princess, and if she can learn to use the Silver Crystal to free you. There's no guarantees."

-

149.

New mission: find the Silver Crystal, find the Moon princess, get memories, profit.

Jadeite flubs the radio station plot on purpose to pretend like he died while he goes off and becomes a secondary Tuxedo Mask. Then he slips information to the senshi and Mamoru both until it's time to poach Nephrite. Then with three Tuxedo Masks and three senshi they wait until it's Jupiter and Kunzite o'clock, then get them. Then Jadeite sends a message to Venus who by this time has relocated to Japan and brings her in about the same time that Zoisite gets fed up with Beryl's ridiculousness and finally they're four and four and two, with _all_ the rainbow crystals.

Ten people against one Beryl.

It's still not enough.

-

150.

One thing that still eludes Jadeite is _how_ exactly the rainbow crystals become the Silver Crystal. Do they just... fuse together? Do they need heat? Sunlight? Does he need to plant them and water them daily and grow a Crystal Tree? Clearly they don't do well under Dark Kingdom Takeover conditions and become super inert.

He'll keep trying. He's so close, he's so close to freedom he can _taste_ it, and he can't wait to never have to do all of this again.

-

155.

Jadeite has to sacrifice Mamoru.

Well, partially.

They've dealt with Dark Prince Endymion before, so dealing with him again isn't so much of a concern, but it isn't something Jadeite looks forward to. Beryl goes for Usagi, as always, and Mamoru blocks her, and this time Jadeite steps back and lets him.

Beryl's aghast at what she's done - clearly something inside her still loves Endymion and can't stand to see him fall - but it's Usagi who really takes the scene. Because somewhere inside her (vindicated, thinks Jadeite) is a shard of the Silver Crystal, and in emotional times like these it's the last piece of the puzzle.

The Silver Crystal is huge and scintillating, like it's got its own light source, and isn't reflecting at all. Beryl reaches out for it and Jadeite knocks her hand away.

He doesn't dare touch it himself, it seems too dangerous, but it settles down in Sailor Moon's new wand like it's always been there, and that feels right.

Of course, the rest of them - Jadeite included! - are all so shocked that they don't notice Beryl making off with Mamoru.

-

164.

It takes a few more goes before Jadeite feels certain that this is _supposed_ to happen. They have to let her take him, and brainwash him, and turn him into Prince Endymion, because as Mamoru himself said, that's what the Silver Crystal is for: restoring memories.

-

178.

It takes longer still for Usagi to learn how to _use_ the Crystal.

"It's not like it comes with a user manual!" she sobs. And as impatient as Jadeite is, he's gotta admit, she has a point.

-

185.

So here's how it happens for the last timeline.

Jadeite flubs the radio station plot, fakes his death, becomes a secondary Tuxedo Mask, slips information to the senshi and Mamoru, poaches Nephrite, waits for Jupiter and Kunzite, sends a message to Venus, gets Zoisite, gets all the rainbow crystals, assembles the party, lets Mamoru sacrifice himself for Usagi, lets Usagi assemble the Silver Crystal, lets Usagi figure out how to _use_ the Silver Crystal (her motivation is a big part of it, and so while it's tempting to hold her hand through it all, that's not how she learns, and Jadeite has to let her sacrifice herself, too), to finally put an end to Beryl and Metallia. (Or so they think.)

At long last, the memories return in a rush.

There's Jadeite with the other three in a field in Elysion. There's Jadeite at a ball dancing with who Rei used to be. There's the Golden Crystal - it's _part_ of Mamoru the way the Silver Crystal is _part_ of Usagi, that's fascinating. There's all the reasons why Kunzite knew what he did and couldn't reveal it, there's all the times (more than once) Beryl had to brainwash Zoisite because Zoisite is actually pretty clever and too wilful for the necessary cognitive dissonance and the brainwashing wouldn't take.

There's all the terrible reasons it seemed like a good idea at the time to join Beryl's cause, and they had no idea she was working with such an entity, and Jadeite's not sure looking back on it whether it would have been enough to dissuade them if they'd known. How awful, how terribly wrong they were.

One thing that strikes him is that there isn't a lot of memory _during_ the Dark Kingdom years. Once the Silver Millenium memories return, the Dark Kingdom memories almost seem... fake.

"They were never real memories," confesses Kunzite later. "I knew, and Beryl knew of course, but ... I couldn't tell any of you. I couldn't let any of you know."

Nephrite's _very_ angry about this. "How could you _make_ that decision for other people?"

"It was that or let Metallia at your minds," says Kunzite helplessly. But the damage is done, and Nephrite and Kunzite don't talk for years later, until after the incidents with the Starlights. Even Zoisite keeps his distance from Kunzite - because Zoisite isn't sure what of his affections was also manufactured.

It doesn't stop them _working_ together, of course. Kunzite makes a pretty great Moonlight Knight, and Zoisite takes up the tuxedo when Mamoru has episodes with his memories. Helping Mamoru through his memory loss is actually trickier than it was for any of them - probably related to the Golden Crystal, Jadeite figures. (The rest of them have finally stopped looking to him for all the answers. Only Nephrite knows about the time loops thing, and Jadeite's pretty sure he doesn't believe it.)

It's interesting to see and experience the tactics of other enemies. The Makai Tree aliens _really_ don't understand Earth and its citizens, and for awhile they don't care to, either. It's exactly the way the country of Ghara worked in ancient Elysion history, before they assembled into one government under one leader, and that helps deal with them quickly. Furthermore, the Black Moon Clan and their ilk espouse a _lot_ of the similar things that Beryl once talked about, way back when.

Jadeite really can't imagine doing any of this _without_ all his memories. How could they have helped protect _anyone_ from the Dead Moon Circus if they weren't here, if no one knew what the Golden Crystal even was?

This must be why he's doing this, isn't it? Because if it hadn't been for the rest of them... if they hadn't been able to be restored, they would have died, wouldn't they? Zoisite, and Kunzite and Nephrite and Jadeite, they'd all have died, and Mamoru would have been desperately, terribly alone.

So...

So maybe it's okay that it's taken him so many damn timelines to get it right. Maybe it's okay that he's had to mess up so many times and restart over, and over, and over again until he really thought he was ready to give it all up. Because it was all worth it, in the end.

-

Mamoru and Usagi make a _lot_ of sense as a couple. There's a lot of destiny involved, sure, and that's one aspect of it, but they kind of fit, too? Mamoru is so fastidious and Usagi is _off-the-cuff, it'll all work out, kinda has to because I'm that lazy_. Jadeite's happy for them.

When a pink-haired girl falls from the sky, Jadeite tells Mamoru, "Calling it now, time shenanigans, that's your kid."

"C'mon," says Mamoru, "there's no way."

Later he eats those words and Jadeite crows, "Oh my god, I can't believe I was right!"

Jadeite and Rei never really form the closeness they had in the Silver Millenium (now that Jadeite can remember it). But that's fine - she's not the exact same as the person he knew. The person he knew as the Mars guardian to the Moon princess didn't have an ounce of spirituality about her, which Jadeite liked. Rei, on the other hand, manages to balance the elements of irreligion with elements of mysticism. They wind up fighting a lot. He's kissed her once when he was drunk at a party and they never spoke of it again.

Ami, on the other hand. Ami he dates for five years after everything is said and done and Ami goes off to university to study. Jadeite has the sneaking suspicion it works as well as it does, for as long as it does, because Ami isn't around a lot and doesn't want or need someone that seeks to devote their time and energy to her as a romantic partner usually does. She prefers someone who respects the boundaries of _her_ time without encroaching on them, and Jadeite finds he rather likes the same. Probably because he's spent so many timelines on the outside, looking in.

Their relationship is perhaps not as tempestuous or passionate as some - Zoisite dates Makoto nearly all the way to marriage and it's a goddamn _mess_ in the way they ruin each other in all senses of the word - but what closeness Ami needs, she can count on Jadeite for, and vice versa.

-

And then Jadeite meets Sailor Pluto. It's in what feels like a dream, and Sailor Pluto seems exactly like any of the other Outer Senshi (as they've come to know them) that he doesn't really question it anymore, he doesn't think she's all that strange or different. But there is something different about her and she corners him to let him know.

"You're not supposed to be here," she says.

Jadeite looks around. Everybody else seems to be fine with him being here? He doesn't really _get_ it, yet.

"Time works differently for you," she adds.

Now she's got his attention. "You _know_ ," he says. "You know about the time loops I had to go through!"

Pluto narrows her eyes. "You are still going through them," she says.

Jadeite laughs, a little nervously. "What - what do you mean, I did it right. I got the memories back, the Silver Crystal. I'm not..."

He's not still in Eternal Sleep.

Is he? A dream within a dream?

"I'm still there," he realises. "I'm dreaming right now." Pluto nods, a sage, somber movement. "Well, can you wake me up?"

"I cannot," Pluto says. "Such powers are forbidden." She points to Mamoru. "But he can. He will acquire the stones, and the crystal. Then he can restore you."

"But..." but doesn't Mamoru have those items already? It doesn't seem to make sense. How can he have them yet not have them?

"You'll have to wait."

"How long?"

"Not long," says Pluto. "And yet, at the same time, forever."

"Okay," says Jadeite, numb.

Sailor Pluto turns to leave. "So like - days?" Jadeite calls after her. Pluto says nothing. "Months, years?" There is no answer.

-

Jadeite wakes up in his apartment in Crystal Tokyo and tries not to think about it.

-

Crystal Tokyo has been a beautiful place under Neo-Queen Serenity's guardianship. There's prosperity and peace at last.

Years have passed. The nightmare that was everything _about_ the Dark Kingdom is so distant it seems unreal. And Jadeite is much older now. He can feel it in his bones when he wakes, he can feel it when he walks.

He's ready for it to be over, and it's any day now.

One night he goes to sleep, and he doesn't wake up. He drifts off, a smile on his face, wrinkles on his brow, and a calmness in his mind.

-

186.

Except that he does wake up.

He wakes up in a parking lot. 

And for a very long moment Jadeite cannot process what has happened. How he can _be_ here. This can't be real. It can't be like this. It can't be again!

"No," Jadeite whispers. "No, no - I was finished. I did it, I did everything you _asked_ me."

" _Who_ asked you? What are you talking about?" says Flau. "We've got a radio station to infiltrate and energy to steal."

In numb shock, his blood frozen, Jadeite can only shake his head.

So this is what it feels like when your heart breaks.

He can't do this.

He can't do this anymore.

He sits down and refuses to move until Kunzite - evil once more - comes to collect him and deliver him to Beryl for execution.

-

187.

He wakes up in a parking lot.

-

194.

A parking lot.

-

215.

A goddamn, useless, fucking parking lot.

-

254.

"So - what, was it all for nothing? _What do you want from me?_ " Jadeite screams.

"Uh, maybe some energy?" asks Flau.

" _I WASN'T TALKING TO YOU,_ " he bellows.

-

349.

Jadeite gives up.

-


	11. Chapter 11

512.

If he has to do this so many times, he may as well make himself happy.

He courts, then marries, Minako. It's a lovely summer wedding and she has a blast planning it and they last about seven years. Turns out Jadeite's a cat person if that cat is Artemis.

(They don't have children, and this winds up being a problem for Minako. Not for the first time Jadeite wonders whether what Metallia did to them and their resurrection has him shooting blanks, or if it's because none of the generals are really _quite_ human.)

-

1405.

Not having children is not a problem for Makoto, even though he has seen her have children in so many other timelines. Jadeite doesn't question it.

They have countless wonderful years together and when he has to do it all over again, he's sorely tempted not to change a thing.

The quantum fluctuations take care of that for him. One particularly bad timeline they fizzle out, and he never sees her quite the same way again.

-

6888.

Is hate-dating a term? That's pretty much what he's doing with Rei.

-

9548.

It's become a Fun Challenge to see whether they can actually make it work for any length of time, if they can find some stable equilibrium. Or unstable equilibrium. Not yet!

-

15337.

For all her minor annoyances, Koan winds up being great in the sack, once they get to know each other. But man, they can _not_ be in a relationship! It kinda has to stay at friends with benefits for both their sanity.

-

35794.

Jadeite decides to join the Black Moon clan for shits and giggles.

Turns out, it's boring and they don't even have wifi.

-

81456 and 81457.

In rapid succession, Jadeite tries dating Berthier in one timeline (it doesn't go very well) and Calaveras (they fall desperately in love and she ruins him for romance for the next hundred timelines; he didn't know he could feel like that, or hurt that bad).

-

125114.

"You are the worst babysitter ever," says Mamoru.

"Am not," says Jadeite, "she loves me!"

Chibiusa _does_ love him. But Mamoru is less happy at what Jadeite has been teaching his child. The paint never does come off the walls. Luckily, new timeline, new canvas!

-

534658.

"If this keeps happening," reasons Nephrite, who has the worst taste in pillow talk, "every time you die, you just ... restart from your third mission - is this the first time you've told me this?"

"I've lost count," Jadeite sobs.

-

1065446.

Then there's that one time he dates a demon, _during_ the Dark Kingdom days. It's pretty monstrous and she eats Jadeite alive. Literally no benefit to this.

-

6103579.

"Okay, I'm actually impressed at how badly you wrecked this house," says Usagi.

Mamoru is too apoplectic to say anything.

"I blame the cat," says Jadeite. "I'm never catsitting for you again."

"Did _the cat_ set _my kitchen on fire?_ " Mamoru shrieks.

"Yes," says Jadeite, deadpan, and pockets his lighter.

-

27344145.

"... so anyway that ended in what I truly can only describe as a magical space party but with more chaotic entropy death. And that's why I'm not allowed to touch the Silver Crystal without gloves on. Luckily - hah! - I keep getting reborn, and the ten _more_ times I did it didn't take, so here I am and I thought I'd ask what you think about the whole thing? It doesn't seem healthy to me."

Makoto's therapist is too apoplectic to say anything.

"You bill by the hour, right?" Jadeite clicks his tongue and kicks forward a duffel bag of cash. "Sure am glad I robbed that bank. I have _so many issues._ "

-

94506997.

The short, bitter, but passionate affair he has with Mamoru almost makes up for the equally short affair he has with Usagi. He tries a polyship with them for a few timelines and _that's_ more or less stable, but once he figures out how to get into it, he gets bored.

But Jadeite too gets so bored of being cynical and seeing himself above everyone else. He has to try to take it one lifetime at a time. Fall in love with someone new. (If there are soulmates, Jadeite has discovered like nine of them.) Appreciate people for who they are. Get to know them - love them, cherish them.

Falling in love, for Jadeite, never doesn't hurt, but it's never not worth it.

-

1081935642.

Crystal Tokyo has this great street corner where you can set up and busk to your heart's content but people in Crystal Tokyo are a little more used to magic, whereas in the middle of Regular Tokyo he can clown it up and make fireworks spring from his hands and bunnies leap from his top hat and swish his cape around to vanish into thin air and people just think it's cool sleight of hand. Finally Jadeite is the street magician he's never wanted to be.

"Can you _please leave the shrine,_ " says Rei. "You're messing with the energy. And my patience."

"I'm putting the fun into _fundraising_ ," says Jadeite.

"Really? Because you look like you're having a miserable time."

Jadeite sighs. "I always hate it when you're right."

-

∞.

He wakes up, and the room is dark.

Jadeite steps forward. It doesn't _sound_ like a parking lot...there are no lights on. It doesn't look like anything.

"Flau?" he calls out nervously.

Or he tries to, anyway - his voice is unbearably creaky, like he hasn't used it in centuries. Jadeite puts a hand to his throat, feeling that everything is where it should be, and just that simple action has his arm muscles protesting.

He twists around. There's some sort of melted crystal sculpture-like thing behind him, about waist high. He peers closer to examine it; still in the base of it are two foot-shaped holes. Huh.

He straightens, gets to his feet, and turns around, and Mamoru is there, pocketing something green and golden.

"You're not Flau," Jadeite croaks.

"I have literally no idea who that is," says Mamoru. He takes a deep breath in and exhales it slowly. "Listen - I should introduce myself, because, uh, the last time we saw each other we drowned each other - I'm -"

"I know who you are," says Jadeite. "Mamoru Chiba. Endymion. Tuxedo Mask. You're - _I serve you_. I made vows over an infinite number of years ago and I know I broke them once but you have to believe me, I _never will again_."

"Uh. Wow," says Mamoru. "You're... really a lot more frank than I was expecting you to be?"

"Maybe I should do this one over," says Jadeite, and turns to the melted crystal for a shard to stab himself with.

"No, no! Don't do that!" Mamoru grabs him by the arm.

And it feels real.

For the first time in - he's forgotten how long - that's sensation. Shocking, tingling, _sensation_.

Everything else that he's felt for the past eon didn't feel like that. He thought it did, but it didn't, because it wasn't real.

"It wasn't real," Jadeite whispers. He reaches out and traces the edge of his sleeve, the hem of his glove. He removes the glove and flexes his bare hands for the first time in - well, he can't remember.

"Yeah," says Mamoru. "But, uh. This is. And -" He sighs. "And look, I know you're probably a little frozen still, so I feel a little guilty asking. But it was only three years, and I could really use you, and I thought maybe you could use the job, or the distraction, I mean, not that there's - it's just that Usagi has friends and guardians and why not me too, right, or... y'know what, this was a really dumb idea -"

_Only three years_.

"I mean, only if you want to," says Mamoru. "'Cause I can always put you back -"

" _No, that's fine!_ " says Jadeite quickly. Just the thought of that is enough to spook him, and he steps towards Mamoru, and away from the melted crystal in which he Eternal Slept a nightmare. "Of course," he says simply. "I'm yours, aren't I?"

Mamoru blushes, which is the only way Jadeite realises he's probably said something that sounds a little weird, even if Mamoru said it first, ages ago, in Jadeite's dreams. _You were my generals, my guardians. You were mine_.

"Anyway," says Jadeite. "I think I've learned my lesson."


End file.
